Once a boy while wandering over fields, entered a water-mill. He was imaginative and curious by nature. On seeing the mill-stone go round and round incessantly, his inquisitive mind began to inquire and he approached the miller, who was sitting nearby, and asked him how the stone moved? The miller explained to him how the movement of the water pushed a wheel below, which made the stone move. He asked the boy to listen to the flow of the water. The boy did so for a while and then went out to see for himself how the water flowed, and how it set the wheel in motion. When he came back he exclaimed that he understood how water made the wheel to move. The miller heard his words and after a pause remarked calmly, "No, my boy, it is the flow of the water that makes the wheel to move." The boy could not at once understand the difference that the miller's words made. After a while he said, "Surely, if there were no flow the wheel would not move." The miller explained to him how it was the flow of the water which made the wheel move and how the same flow kept it in constant movement. If the flow ceased the movement of the wheel would also stop.
The boy felt amused. As there was silence all around, he sat listening to the flow of water. He felt, as if he too flowed with water. His curiosity was further awakened. He asked the miller how it was that though the flow of water was constant yet its sound seemed to vary. The miller was delighted to see the boy feel interested and spoke thus, "My boy, I have been listening to this water for all my life. I came here as a boy, when I was perhaps smaller than you, with my father, and have by now spent more than sixty years listening to it. I think this flow of water has a great message for those who care to listen to it, patiently and carefully, but alas! only a few do so. You are correct. The sound rises and falls. Listen more carefully and you will learn more from it. Yes, though water flows constantly, yet it is not one continuous sound that it makes. It is broken up at regular intervals. Perhaps the flow of water is not in a continuity as such, but every drop as it moves, undergoes a change at every move, as it rises and goes down. The movement of water is itself the result of this change. Should there be no change there would be no flow. As you listen to the flow you can hear the ebb and rise of the sound. Can you catch it?"
The boy sat listening for a few minutes and then said that he felt like catching it. The miller finding good company in the boy, who listened to him patiently and intelligently said to him, "Look my boy, I seldom talk of it, for only a few care for such things. Many come here but usually their minds are filled with their own business and as soon as they feel the satisfaction of having achieved their purpose they hurry away. A few have time or inclination to hear the song of this flow and learn from it. Since you feel interested in it, I shall try to explain to you as best as I can what I have myself understood of this flow, but I must tell you that no words can really convey what I mean. Try to go beyond words and feel with me.
"If you listen to it with care and affection, as you listen to a dear friend, who you may have met after a long time, you will feel that there are moments when flow appears to stop, because you will feel the sound stop. It is generally for a very short while, so short that you canot catch it up easily. Do listen to it like this and you will observe that these stops are almost regular. By listening for years to this flow I have understood how it is from these stops that the sound arises. Can you leave your thoughts aside and just listen? While listening thus to the flow of water do not try to close your mind to other sounds—the sounds of the bird on the window sill, the buzzing of that aeroplane overhead, the sound of the bullock-cart moving on the village road. Listening thus you will hear more than I can tell you; you will see more than I can show you; and you will understand more than I can explain to you. Will you try it for the fun of it?"
The boy smiled silently and felt as if enchanted. The whole atmosphere seemed transformed to him. He sat listening thus for a while and felt as if he had suddenly come of age, and yet his heart was as young as ever. He felt silence speak to him. The miller perceiving joy on the boy's face spoke, "You appear to have understood. Now I will tell you something more. Attend to it and perhaps it may open some thing more to you.
"The flow of the water is like the flow of life. Life itself is a throb, a flow, a 'spanda'. This life which is in you and in every living creature also moves thus. Not only does your breath come in and go out like this, but the whole of life moves, as if, by jumps and stops. As you listen to the flow of water, if you silmilarly listen within yourself also, you will find that the life itself is a throb, a vibration. Every throb appears to release new life out of silence into which it appears to return. The silence is there after and before every throb. Watch it. To understand these throbs you must watch where one ends and the other begins. Though these throbs follow each other regularly there is always a small pause between the two which grows gradually deeper as you continue to learn to attend to it. You will very soon understand the charm of these pauses. The flow of the water has taught me to understand the flow of life; you will have to leave your own play and instead let it play. Try to observe this movement choicelessly, otherwise it cannot mean anything to you. If you learn to tune your sound with its current, you will see that very soon your life is filled with it and whatever you think, feel or do you will not miss its music. You see I am often busy at the mill adding corn to the hopper and removing the flour and so on, but the sound of the movement that water has taught me is always in my heart. I move with this movement, sometimes I feel as if there is only the movement.
"Now just look at the open space and the world around you. The whole creation is the result of a throb, a movement. This eternal movement continues to sustain the universe, as the individual throb continues to sustain the individual. When an individual attends to his individual throb, he feels that his senses along with their perception and their memories are supreme and is led by them to seek what they want. Now his memory and the meaning he gives to his perceptions is generally what he has learnt and stored for ages in his mind and heart. He is bound to them like an animal to the tether, but when a man picks up courage to tune his throb to the Universal Throb, he knows that he is free and is in possessions of powers previuously undreamt of. But for this you must be able to muster courage to give up your self-centered centre and move with the Universal Centre. Watch the sea sometimes and see how the water is always in motion. The waves constantly dash against the shore. As they ebb and flow you feel that the sea is alive. Suppose the movement was not there, how would you think of it. It would be a dead mass of water. It is this ebb and flow that makes it, not only alive, but magnificient, grand and dreadful too. Watch the open skies and learn the same lesson from the silent movement of heavenly bodies too".
The boy understood and smiled as if to thank the miller. The old miller, too, smiled at him with joy beaming in his eyes and peace on his face. Both sat there till late in the night. Though they did not talk a word now, yet there was communion between them and the whole nature around. Night came on but the time seemed to have lost its significance to them. Though they were alive to the world yet they were not of it.
The ocean had entered the drop.