Adapted from the Gospel of Ramakrishna
This is a parable told by Sri Ramakrishna, a spiritual teacher, genius and saint. He did not have any formal education yet he was a treasure-house of oral traditions, out of which he created his own.
The story goes like this…
A holy man was once meditating on the bank of a river, when another holy man wanted to impress him with the extraordinary powers he had achieved through his ascetic practices. So he came towards him, walking on the water.
When he reached the place where the first holy man was quietly sitting, the second holy man said, “Did you see what I just did?”
The first holy man said, “Oh yes, I saw you come across the river, walking on the water. Where did you learn that?”
The second holy man answered, “I practiced yoga and penances for twelve years in the foothills of the Himalayas, standing on one leg, fasting six days of a week. And so I acquired this power.”
The first holy man laughed and replied, “Really? Why did you go through all that trouble for this? Our ferryman here will ferry you across any day for two pennies.”
This story hints at the fact that the truly enlightened one neither seeks validation nor flaunts the power by engaging in magical displays.
Sri Aurobindo talks about something similar when he says…“one is met by the now fashionable habit, among people presuming to be Vedantic and spiritual, of a denunciation and holy horror of the Yogic siddhis. They are, it seems, Tantric, dangerous, immoral, delusive as conjuring tricks, a stumbling block in the path of the soul’s liberation”.
All spiritual quests essentially begin, persist and end with surrender. The desire for gaining occult power only bridles a person’s inner progress. Humility and gratitude are ways in which one stays rooted and focused.