Reach Out For What Is Intended For You Or Else..

The doorkeeper laughed and said, “If you are so tempted you might as well try getting beyond the door. But remember that I am very powerful and just the first doorkeeper you’ll see. There are guards looking after the doors that follow this one, men who are even more powerful than one can imagine.”

Photo Credit : happyho,

Nandita Kochar

A doorkeeper was standing, guarding the door to the temple of the Law. A man walked up to the temple and asked the doorkeeper to let him in but the former refused and said that it could not happen at the moment.

A couple of seconds later, the man asked if he’d be allowed later. “It is possible but not at this moment.”, responded the doorkeeper.

Disappointed, the man tried to take a peep of whatever lay beyond the open door.

The doorkeeper laughed and said, “If you are so tempted you might as well try getting beyond the door. But remember that I am very powerful and just the first doorkeeper you’ll see. There are guards looking after the doors that follow this one, men who are even more powerful than one can imagine.”

The man was then offered a stool and there he sat for many years to come. Every time he tried to get permission to pass through the door or demanded a definitive answer to his questions, he was turned down saying that nothing could happen at the moment.

The final years of the man were closing in on him. And as he realised this, he was hit with a sudden urge to ask the doorkeeper a question he’d been meaning to put forth for a very long time now.

“What do you want now? Why can’t you ever be satisfied?”, said the doorkeeper.

“Everyone wishes to attain the Law. Then how come no one has come here all these years, no one but me.”, asked the man.

The doorkeeper whispered the answer into his ears, “No one but you could get admittance through this door. This door was only intended for you. I am going to shut it now.”

Osho has a very beautiful interpretation of this parable.

The man was always sitting there by the side and the gate was open but he never tried. Even the gatekeeper had been provoking him saying, “You can go, try! Although I am powerful, try!” But he said, “No, I will wait. Whenever the time comes.” But then the time comes never. Jesus says, “Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. Ask and it shall be given. Seek and ye shall find.” It is just around the corner but we go on waiting as if somebody is going to give it to us.