A friend once told me the following Buddhist fable.
In a remote monastery, an advanced spiritual adept lay dying in his bed. Peacefully reflecting on how he felt free of all attachments, he heard a barrow being pushed along the leaf-lined pathway below his window. A young boy had been collecting apples from the monastery’s orchard and was delivering them to the kitchen.
As he took his last breath, the dying adept remembered the taste of those fresh apples and, yearning for a bite, his fate was sealed. He reincarnated as a worm in the apple orchard.
This story reflects the Buddhist belief that when a person dies, their final thoughts and desires determine if they are to reincarnate, and if so, what that incarnation will be. In a similar vein, “A Course in Miracles” proposes that our experience of being in this world betrays a belief that there is something worth striving for here — something better, or more, than Everything.
Click on the following link to listen to a reading of ‘More, More, More,’ from “The Bridge of Return: A Course in Miracles as a Western Yoga,” which explores this belief. The discussion concludes with the importance of gratitude in the Course’s curriculum, and outlines psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s thoughts on how anger and grief are intimately related. With this understanding, we can truly empathise with others and experience forgiveness, freeing us from the cycle of return.
Reflections on A Course in Miracles 