Every drop originates in the ocean; and to the ocean, every drop yearns to return.

The ocean is comprised of countless drops. Yet we don’t perceive the ocean as innumerable entities: we perceive the ocean as one.

When the sun shines on the surface of the ocean, some of its surface water is evaporated. It changes its form from liquid to gas, and so apparently disappears. As the newly formed vapour rises, it cools. As it cools, it reforms into myriad tiny droplets, which together form clouds.

These clouds are derived from the parent ocean: in essence they are the same substance, only taking ever-new forms. One might imagine the ocean gazing up, watching the clouds perpetually dancing across the sky, like an artist admiring his creation or a mother observing her children at play.

When these clouds float over the land they rise and cool. As more vapour condenses into larger and heavier droplets, the mass becomes too great for the clouds to bear, gravity plays its role and the clouds release their burden as rain, hail or snow, which descends to earth. What started as ocean became vapour became cloud became rain and now becomes all manner of phenomena – lakes, streams, waterfalls, snowfields, glaciers.

Water in all its forms and functions sustains, nourishes and nurtures all life, structures and activity on earth. Every living being is comprised mostly of water. Virtually all functions and activities of plants, animals and humans require the presence of water.

Water represents consciousness. Like water, consciousness is essential to and pervades life, all living beings, functions and activities.

Like water, consciousness takes many forms and shapes and like water, all “drops” of consciousness derive from one source, one “ocean”.

(to be continued…)