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Voyager - February
2008 The Search
Ankur As the sun was setting on a beautiful day, a Zen master and his followers were returning to their village from a day out in the forest when they came across an old woman on her hands and knees in the road just outside her small house. ‘What are you doing?’ they asked. ‘I am looking for a needle that I dropped’ she replied, ‘but I have already been searching for an hour without success.’ ‘There are many of us, maybe we can help you find it before the light fades’ one of them offered. ‘Can you tell me exactly where you lost it and we can start looking there? ‘Oh… I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that!’ replied the old woman. ‘Because, to be honest, I lost it inside my house.’ ‘Then why on earth are you searching for it out here in the road?’ a follower asked in amazement. ‘Well it is too dark to see inside my house, so I will never find it in there. At least outside I can see well, so it is easy to look for it.’ The followers were stunned. They had always thought the old woman a little strange and this just proved it beyond all doubt. They left her to her madness and chuckled to themselves at her stupidity as they carried on walking back to their village. But before long their master stopped them: ‘You laugh at her, but don’t you see that is exactly what you are doing’ he said. ‘You spend your lives seeking your truth, but in your blind desperation you only look on the outside: in your possessions, in your activities, in the presence of others. But you must know that you didn’t lose it there, that it has never has been there and that you will never find it there. But in your craziness you just carry on searching in the wrong places. No matter how difficult it may seem, you too must search inside for your truth, for that is where you left it.’ Ankur (adapted from a Zen story) © Ankur 2008
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Ankur made the transformation from Bank Manager to Spiritual Coach during a seven-year journey, through over 50 countries.
This inner path of self-discovery and awareness led to a new life, free from the
constraints and conditioning he had previously believed to be himself, and
brought a connection with the Joy, Peace, Love and Fulfilment that is his true
self. He is qualified in Life Coaching, NLP, Time Line Therapy and
Enlightenment / Awareness Intensive Work (the search for true self).
