Oars of Action and Meditation
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     ​Once upon a yogi time there was a young man who was carrying a very pompous swami across the lake in his small boat. The swami was saying how wealthy he was and how wise he was and how much inheritance he had. Then he asked the young man, “Do you have any inheritance?”

     The young man answered, “Only these two oars. My father left me these two oars and look, on the one oar he carved ‘Kriya’, and on the other, ‘Dharana’. Action and meditation.”
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     The swami said, “I don’t understand…that seems like a stupid gift.” “Most people do sir but let me explain.” Whereupon the young man grabbed hold of the oar of meditation with both hands and started rowing.

    The boat just went in this very big clockwise circle, so he said, “You see, nothing really happens. We don’t go anywhere. Now watch.”    

     He took his hands off the oar of meditation, grabbed hold of the oar called ‘action’ and started rowing. The boat changed direction, turned around and went in a big counter-clockwise circle. “Now you see the problem: There is a group of people who think we ought to meditate, they have no action, and they move in this direction. And then there are people who are always doing things and never meditating and they’re going in that direction. But watch this…”

     He put one hand on the oar of meditation and the other hand on the oar of action and he started rowing. After the boat went straight to shore, he said, “That, sir, is the gift that my father gave me.”
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     If you are a meditator, start doing something after you meditate. If you’re a doer, stop doing it and meditate. Very soon you will reach the other shore, which is where you really want to go.