Upon an eon, a small stream, traveling toward the Sea of The Infinite, encountered a huge rock, and the rock, set in its nature, stubbornly exclaimed: "I am here to stay: attempt to pass me and my hard, rough brow will break you into helpless drops."

  And the stream replied, "I have no desire to pass you. I would become one with you. If you are rough and hard, I shall resign myself to conditions met with."

  And the stream sang its song in small, smooth ripples that gently embraced the rough and hardened surface. Till, after eons passed, the stream was lake and the rock lay as a pebble in its cool tranquil depth. And the lake was given to ask, "Companion, what has become of thy size and roughness?"

  And the pebble answered, "Have I not striven to reduce myself to smoothness and quality?"

  But the eons passed; and the lake became a sea; and the pebble, a grain of sand. And the grain of sand wondered: What has become of the little stream? Have I reduced it to nothingness? No longer do I feel the nearness of its silvery girdle.

  And the sea rocked to-and-fro in majestic silence. But as the eons passed, the grain of sand became a pearl in the heart of an oyster; and, in its joy, exclaimed, "Now, if the stream but knew, would it not envy me: for I have touched Realization and glow as a jewel in the heart of a Sea Goddess."

  But the sea, now an ocean of power and depth, spoke in words only understood by oceans: "What was once my greatest obstacle has finally become a treasured part of me: a Pearl in the womb of an oyster. May I never be tempted to tell my pearl the difference between Realization and Crystalization --nor the distinction between an oyster and a goddess."

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Norman Douglass Money