16/07/2025
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A Hasidic tale: "One-night Rabbi Isaac was told in his dream to go to faraway Prague and there to dig for a hidden treasure under a bridge that led to the palace of the king. He did not take the dream seriously but when it recurred four or five times, he made up his mind to go in search of the treasure. When he got to the bridge, he discovered to his dismay that it was heavily guarded day and night by soldiers. All he could do was gaze at the bridge from a distance. But since he went there every morning the captain of the guards came up to him one day to find out why. Rabbi Isaac, embarrassed as he was to tell his dream to another soul, told the captain everything for he liked the good-natured character of this Christian. The captain roared with laughter and said, “Good heavens! You a Rabbi and you take dreams so seriously? Why if I were stupid enough to act on my own dreams, I would be wandering around in Poland today. Let me tell you one that I had last night that keeps recurring frequently: A voice tells me to go to Cracow and dig for treasure in the corner of the kitchen of one Isaac son of Ezechiel! Now wouldn’t it be the most stupid thing in the world to search around in Cracow for a man called Isaac and another called Ezechiel when half the male population there probably has one name and the other half the other?” The Rabbi was stunned. He thanked the captain for his advice, hurried home, dug up the corner of his kitchen and found a treasure abundant enough to keep him in comfort till the day he died. The spiritual quest is a journey without distance. You travel from where you are right now to where you have always been. From ignorance to recognition, for all you do is see for the first time what you have always been looking at. Who ever heard of a path that brings you to yourself or a method that makes you what you have always been? Spirituality, after all, is only a matter of becoming what you really are."
Anthony de Mello. Prayer of the Frog
