The Power Of YES

My Guru

You see, I’d love to tell you a story about a dusty poor homeless man I met in Vietnam who became my guru and who I’ve never seen again. He began and ended in my life in three minutes and continues on here now forever. Do I love him? Oh Yes! How I love him! He is Me, you know! How could I not love him? I die for him every day, I die for me every day, I don’t wait for Jesus to do it, I die for myself as often as I can! My guru doesn’t want love for me, or anything good at all — he just loves me. The most he’d ever give me is *maybe* a cigarette, but even that, only for the fun of it, for old time’s sake. Does my guru love me? Do I love my guru? Barely. There is so much else! So many other beings! Look! Right here! Right now! Look! The universe is peopling another being right now! Yikes! It’s YOU!

Our Story

    Some years ago I was in dusty Vietnamese village, no stores, I wanted a cigarette. There ahead, a man on the side of the road, no shoes, just shorts, sitting and opening a pack of Marlboros. With gestures I ask him for one, he is smiling, he gives, he lights my cigarette, I smile back and continue up the road. One hundred yards on, I realize, “That is a homeless man in a beggar-rich country, and he gave me, the rich affluent American, a cigarette without asking for anything in return!” I turn and see he is still standing there, back there, smiling. I start walking back towards him and his smile increases, with mine, our smiles growing with each other — I walk up to him and we are grinning now. *Grinning.* I am seeing his eyes becoming watery. He*totally*gets*me*getting*him. And tears are coming to all eyes now and my hand pulls out two months his-income and give it to him, his hand takes it without even looking down and the love flowed, *flowed*. He his destitute, homeless and absolutely alone in the same world I am in, and what matters to him is that I see him nearly as much as he saw me from the first moment. When I looked back from a hundred yards away a second time, he was standing relaxed nearly into the earth, money almost dropping out of his limp hand, at-one with the sight of the back of the American he still tells stories about to this day.

My guru.