The Secret - When You Can Walk On Water , Take The Boat ( Part 25 )
The Secret - When You Can Walk On Water, Take The Boat (Part 25)
One day a man was walking down the street when he saw a shackled woman sitting on the curb. She had clearly been mistreated. Every day she sat there begging for money, her eyes looking straight ahead without blinking and with lips drawn together in concentration. When the man passed by she said, "Please help me." He ignored her and continued walking until he heard an angry voice call his name from behind him. The voice belonged to a friend that had noticed him dragging along this woman as if she were baggage on his way to meet up with friends for drinks at some nearby cafe. "It is a woman you can help," the friend called out. "She is blind and cannot see. Please give her a few rials for food so she may continue begging as she has been doing." The man knew his friend was telling the truth, so he went back and gave the beggar woman some money. He could tell that her eyesight had not improved despite his generosity, yet he still felt fulfilled about what he had done for her.
The next day the man came back to walk by the same spot where he had left the woman begging on yesterday. As anticipated, she was still there with no change to her appearance or makeup of any kind. She did not acknowledge the man as he walked by and continued to beg on her knees. The man thought about how she had just been given some money yesterday and yet she was out here again today begging for more. He could not understand why she did not use her money to find some type of work and help herself; instead, it appeared as if she had decided that begging was the best way for her to survive through this difficult time in her life. He thought that perhaps she was in need of a few more rials, so he went back to give her a few more coins. When he arrived at his destination, a table full of drinks awaited him and his friends. He started to walk away but then turned back to the woman and saw that she was weeping. He asked why she was crying, and she replied, "I have seen this man before and he can walk on water."
The man thought about how in his past life he was a great scholar. If he had difficulty remembering things then perhaps he needed glasses, so he went back to give her some money again. She did not look any older than when they had parted the day before with the same sad look in her eyes. As before, none of his money seemed to help her any more. It was as though she had run out of rials and needed to continue begging for another few days. When the man turned away for the last time that day she called out to him as if in a dream. Just as he stuck his hand into his pocket, the woman grabbed it and placed it back into her pocket. Her eyes were filled with tears again as she said, "If you give me your shirt, I will pay you back threefold."
The man could feel something odd on the ground between them and knew just what it was. He bent down to pick up a few stones that had fallen from her begging bowl when he heard her call out again, "If you give me your pants, I will pay you back...tenfold!" The man did not know what to do. He protested, "Your possessions are mine and I must have them back." She replied, "You can keep my money, but you must give me the shirt and pants you are wearing." The man thought about how she was unexpectedly demanding more than he had originally given her, so he decided to try one last time. He reached down into his pants and started to pull out his drawers. As they slid down his legs a gust of wind blew across her face as if it were a door opening up to reveal something new. The man then turned his back to her while pulling his remaining pants off over his head.
The woman gasped and fell backwards onto the ground with a loud bang. When the man turned around, he saw that she was gone, leaving only her begging bowl behind. He looked up at the sky and noticed that there were many people watching him from high above. They were all flying very close to one another in a formation like that of a flock of birds, as if they were communicating on some sort of frequency. The man could not understand what they were saying to each other, but he could hear loud voices of anger coming from their lines. They were all shouting insults at him and calling his name.
"What are they saying?" he asked the closest spectator above him, who replied, "They are telling you that if you do not take off your pants and turn around now, then they will have to come down and make you." The man reached around behind him to feel if anything was there, but no one was there with him. He looked up again at the birds circling above and saw that everyone had their face covered by wide-brimmed hats. He could not even tell if it was a man or woman he was speaking to, but in any case the voice told him that if he did not listen to them then they would come and make him.
The man looked down and saw that it was still dark outside, so he knew that it had not been very long since he had started walking down this street. He did not know how long the night would be, but somehow he knew that if he turned around and gave up his pants now then there would never be any end to this night for him. The man decided to keep his pants on, so he held onto them tightly as the voice of the crowd continued shouting insults at him from above. "They say that if you turn around and give away your pants now, then everything will be over for you," the voice cried out. The man looked at the woman's begging bowl and realized that she had never eaten from it, but he could hear her voice coming from inside the bowl chanting, "Turn around and give me your pants now. Turn around and give me your pants now." The man tried to cover his ears so that he would not have to listen to her voice anymore, but her chanting only got louder with each passing moment. Soon he could not even hear one another speak or anything else besides this woman chanting "turn around" over and over again.
"Turn around...," he heard the voice say. The man looked around and saw that there were many birds flying above him. He could not see the eyes or faces of these people; instead, he was seeing through the eyes of these birds, who were crying out to him in anguish. "Turn around," he heard the voice say again. The man looked up and saw no one more than 200 feet above him and behind each person in this crew of birds was a second bird flying close behind it. As he looked on, he saw them fly closer and closer until they were directly over his head, so close that if one bird flapped its wings all of them would have fallen from the sky at once.
"They say...
Conclusion
The story is told in a way that it sounds like it happened many times, or at least like it happened to the man. Is there any truth to this story? Well, you can only really make up a story that has no evidence to support it. The man does state that he doesn't remember anything about the past life he was describing about, and as for the last two events that occur in the story, the man definitely did see a floating woman and her begging bowl, but it was actually just an illusion from the floating lights in front of him. In some versions of this story he also says seeing strange horses on the road towards his destination too.