Reunion In Istanbul

Some magic of ServiceSpace connections from Turkey… Last weekend brother Kishan dropped us a message that one of his dear friends from the Moved by Love ecosystem was visiting Istanbul. They were none other than Ashima and Sikander, the Romania Awakin hosts, along with two friends. Sure enough, we got in touch and arranged a meeting on the Asian side of town.
A little while into our conversation over Turkish chai, Ashima and I found out that we had sat in the same Vipassana course in Igatpuri over the new year. But somehow we didn’t get to meet each other one-to-one. It was thrilling to realize that we had already been in the same space physically before. It seemed like life was meant to make us wait until this rainy Sunday afternoon in Istanbul to re-connect :)



After visiting a local dargah, we sat down for lunch with Ali Osman, a dear friend and elder from the Sufi tradition. He told a beautiful story to us: There was a teacher who had a cross-eyed student. The teacher told his student: “Go to the other room. There is a bottle. Can you bring it for me?” The student went and returned after a short while. He informed the teacher: “Master, I went but there were two bottles. Which one do you want me to bring?” The teacher said: “No, there is only one bottle. Go back and break it. You will see.” The student went back and did as he was told. As he threw the bottle onto the floor, he was surprised to find that both bottles had disappeared.
In fact, we are all cross-eyed: We see duality where there is actually Unity. Only if we learn how to break the false bottles we have created, we can recognize the Oneness in everything.