sour grapes

The great classical story teller, Aesop, tells the tale of a hungry fox looking for some food.

One hot summer’s day a fox was strolling through an orchard. He came upon a bunch of grapes just ripening on a vine high above his head. Feeling hungry and not seeing much else around him he said, “this could be just the thing to quench my appetite.” He took a few steps back, ran and took a jump up at the grapes but just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he took another running leap at the grapes but still missed catching them. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last he had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “Ahhh, those grapes were probably sour anyway.”

This reminds me of those fellows who go to bars trying to pick up girls. If a girl rejects them they walk away making some crude comment about how unattractive she was, anyway.

It’s easy to despise what you cannot get.

This is also the case with mysticism. Many people go into the practice expecting some specific result and when they fail to achieve it, condemn the whole system. The enlightened state is attainable and worthy of attainment but it requires a degree of commitment that many people are not willing to make. Failing with one approach the committed mystic makes adjustments and gets back to work. The grapes of mysticism are not sour but they do require effort to taste.

The Master Jesus said, in declaring himself One with the Mystical state: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”

How do you attain this state? You make the effort, continuously, as though your life depended on it. Wake yourself up. Wake yourself up any way you can. Wake yourself up and then wake up everyone else. Don’t be like the fox; keep working until you succeed in tasting the sweet fruit of the mystic.

Wake Up