Having found passage on a boat delivering goods from Tyre, a craftsman sat pensively at the bow, the eyes under his furrowed brow looking out over the indigo waves and into the blue sky beyond the clouds. The captain approached him and asked, “Brother, what is that so occupies your mind?”
The craftsman looked at him and said, “Once when I was in the forests of Lebanon I met an old hermit who taught me that all things are illusions, that the only reality is oneness, and that two-ness is the foundation of all illusions. He said that we must strip away all these illusions by meditation and only then could we see this one truth as a great light shining within. It reminded me of the light of Masonry.”
The captain asked, “Is there something that troubles you about this?”
“Yes,” replied the craftsman. “How can I reject all I experience as nothing but illusions? Does seeking more light, as we are taught to do in Masonry, mean that I must reject the world, and even my own life? I have meditated as he taught, and there have been times when the world and my thoughts seemed to slip away. There was no thought of past or future, no thought of this or that, or even of myself, yet I know there was still a singular awareness of some kind. But it troubles me that even after accepting the truth of oneness, I cannot deny that here I still am in a world of too many things to count. Am I just too weak? Should I become a hermit like him?”
The captain pointed out over the surface of the water. “What do you see on the surface of the water?”
“Waves,” said the craftsman.
“And coming up from the bow of the boat?”
“The spray.”
“And when we get to the port, if you look where the water meets the rough sands of the shore, what will you see?”
“Foam.”
“Yes. Waves, spray, and foam. Each of them is here and then soon gone, and yet the sea remains.”
At these words the craftsman’s face relaxed, and he nodded, chuckling to himself, “Today this sea is the light of Masonry.”