I Went to Draw Water from the Spiritual Well

I went to draw water from the spiritual well

And saw an unfamiliar face

My heart grew cold, and my spirit recoiled

Who is this defiling the space?

I said, "what are you doing here?"

"I am here to draw water" is what he said

"Oh no, you're a pagan, you don't belong here.

You are an infidel, and you are going to hell."

"You won't find anything here," I said

There isn't anything here for the likes of you."

"Did you come to draw righteousness from this well?" he asked, gently.

I nodded angrily. He said, "I did too."

"Did you come to draw goodness from this well?" he continued,

Angrily, I replied, "What's it to you?"

"I did not mean to offend," he said.

"I just came to draw goodness too."

"I didn't come to draw barbarism," I snarled,

"And I don't want to have anything to do with you, and your barbaric lot".

"I came to draw compassion from this well," was what he replied.

"You see, I have the very same problems with my thoughts."

That gave me pause, and I said, "Ok...

"We have some things in common, but not a lot".

"I came to draw truth from this well", he said.

"Do you think this is where truth may be sought?"

Again, I got angry, and I snarled

"Truth! I don't want to hear another word

"Don't you get it - My truth is the truth

Your truths are just sacrilegious and absurd."

"But isn't there only one truth?" he said

"I am confused. This is what I believe"

This is why I came to draw water from the well

To find out what it will reveal.

And so we dipped our buckets into the well

Him in curiosity, me confident I was right

And do you know we pulled up the very same things

And it was only then I saw the light.

                     **********************************

Inspired by this quote from Thoreau:

“In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.”

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden