THE BEST SERMON

     Some years ago a television program aired chronicling the Dalai Lama. Part of the broadcast consisted of a number of “famous” people relating the effect he had had on their lives. One interviewee was a well-known hard partying member of a famous rock band. He spoke of how the Dalai Lama had greeted him by name, making him feel truly welcome and though he had only a few minute meet and greet scheduled, the Dalai Lama singled him out and spent hours chatting with him. Much moved, eyes glistened with tears, he spoke of how life changing the meeting had been, how he had been touched at a deep spiritual level, profoundly altered. His segment ended somewhat curiously with his recounting how he had been clean and sober for some months at the time of the meeting but shortly afterward was strung out on Heroin again. What happened? “Knowledge that you do not actually use is only intellectual knowledge and is barren, and even fades out in time through lack of use.” “Faith without works is dead” and “To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action.” All the spiritual knowledge in the world is of little use if we fail to demonstrate it in our lives. The longest eighteen inches in the world lies between the head and heart. What is in the mind is potential, what we demonstrate is reality. This man had every advantage life can provide, money, fame, connections, even learning at the feet of a world-renowned spiritual teacher, yet he failed to demonstrate. “It is far better to have a thimbleful of spiritual knowledge and use it than to have a whole mountain of correct spiritual doctrine most of which you have never made work.”

 So, just for today, practice patience, tolerance, kindness and love to the best of your current ability, for as a wise man said to me many years ago, don’t sing me a sermon, show me one.