On the bank of a wide, slow river lived an old sage whom everyone called
Mukta, "the freed one." Pilgrims travelled from far away just to sit near
him, for it was said that nothing in the world could shake his peace.
A young seeker named Vidur came to him one rainy season, full of questions.
"Master," he said, "they tell me you are completely free. But you still do
things. I have watched you. You draw water from the river. You sweep your
little hut. You feed the birds and care for the sick travellers who pass. If
you do all these things, how can you be free? Doesn't doing tie you down,
like everyone else?"
Mukta smiled and held up his open hand, palm to the sky. "Watch," he said. A
raindrop fell into his palm, sat there a moment, glittering, then slid off
and dropped away. "Did my hand hold the raindrop?"
"No," said Vidur. "It only let it rest, and then let it go."
"That is how I do all my work," said Mukta. "I draw the water, but I do not
clutch it. I sweep the hut, but I do not say, 'This is mine, this must stay
perfect.' I feed the birds and let them fly. My hand stays open, everywhere,
for everything. Things rest in it for a moment, and then they go, and I am
not torn when they go."
"But how did you learn to hold your hand open like that?" asked Vidur.
"First I had to master myself," said Mukta. "When I was young, my wants
ruled me: I craved this, I feared losing that, I grasped at every passing
pleasure. My fist was always closed and aching. So I worked, year after
year, to quiet those wants, until the grasping fell away like a dry leaf. And
when the grasping was gone, I found something astonishing. I could still do
everything I had always done — but none of it could chain me anymore. I
acted, yet I was free."
The rain fell softly all around them. Vidur watched the old man scatter
grain for the sparrows, his hand open and easy, asking nothing back.
"This is the highest freedom," said Mukta quietly. "Not to stop doing. To go
on doing, with a heart that clings to nothing, wants nothing, fears nothing.
Then your every action is light as a raindrop in an open hand. You live in
the world, and the world cannot hold you. That is the freedom that letting-go
brings."
