YOU ARE NOT YOUR MIND

A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a stranger walked by.
“Spare some change?” mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap.
“I have nothing to give you,” said the stranger. Then he asked: “What’s that you are sitting on?”
“Nothing,” replied the beggar, “Just a box. I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.”
“Ever looked inside?”
“No,” said the beggar. “What’s the point? There is nothing in there.”
“Have a look inside,” insisted the stranger.
The beggar managed to pry open the lid.
With astonishment, disbelief and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.
I am that stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look inside. Not inside a box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside yourself.
“But I am not a beggar,” I can hear you say.
Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars.
They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the World can offer.
-Eckhart Tolle-
( From his book the POWER OF NOW)