"As a matter of fact, yes. I was told that quite a few times. But you have to understand, Andy, that when I was in India and Nepal I went to see special teachers, people who are very wise."
"Wiser than you?" the gardener asked?
"Heavens, yes! Much wiser than I am. That's why people from all over the world go to see these teachers—they are exceptionally enlightened individuals."
"Are you sure you're not selling yourself short?" Andy asked. "What if I told you that you are just as wise as any of the teachers you met in India—or any other place—but just don't realize it?"
His answer surprised me and I found myself short of words to reply. "I wish I were," I said.
There was a mysterious quality to this gardener that I couldn't define, a confidence in his utterances that astonished me and at the same time made me feel very insecure. The more we talked, the more I realized this man was no fool, and certainly no everyday gardener.
I explained to him that I'd been lucky enough throughout my years of education to have the privilege of studying with some of the best professors in our field.
"Perhaps you did," he replied. "And for this you should be grateful. But this doesn't mean there aren't deeper answers to the questions you now perceive regarding you personal life and your profession."
"What you say may be true, but where does one find such answers? Believe me, this kind of knowledge has eluded many a better man than I."
The old gardener smiled, and to my absolute amazement he said, "Maybe I know a little something that can help you."
It seemed quite obvious to me that the old gardener had no comprehension of what he was talking about, and it tickled my sense of humor that he actually believed he knew "a little something" that could help me to find some answers.
I didn't want to appear rude, so I hid my smile and asked Andy how he could help me. The answer he gave set me back on my heels; it certainly wasn't what I'd expected, and I'll never forget what he said.
"Has anyone ever suggested to you that the secret to healthy psychological functioning is woven from three spiritual gifts which are the fiber of all human realities?"
I had never heard such a statement. I sat astounded. "What do you mean, three spiritual gifts?" I blurted. "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about!"
The old gardener picked up his shovel and started to dig a hole for his next flower. But then he stopped, rested his chin on the shovel handle, and calmly began to explain.
"The way I see it, there are three gifts, and they are:
The power and the gift of Universal Mind,
the power and the gift of Universal Consciousness,
and the power and the gift of Universal Thought."
That answer was, to say the least, out of the realm of what I had been taught in school. So I told the gardener, with a certain amount of pride, that my profession is one of the most complex fields imaginable.
Ignoring my interruption, Andy asked me if I ever talked to my patients about their thoughts being directly linked to their problems.
"Well, of course," I replied. "But only in a very general way. As I just said, my profession is one of the most complex there is, dealing with people's behavior, emotions and the conditions of their lives. I'm afraid merely talking about their thoughts wouldn't help my clients too much."
"How do you know if you have never tried?" he responded.
He took me off guard with that question. Then, in his very quiet English voice, the gardener suggested that there was more to the power of Thought than I was realizing.
When I asked him exactly what he meant by such a statement, he said, "Mind, combined with the power of Thought and the power of Consciousness, are the determinants we use to direct ourselves through life. We can choose to use them wisely or unwisely. If we use them unwisely, our lives can become a long series of bewildering periods when we feel utterly lost. On the other hand, if we use them wisely, we will experience more contented lives."
Again, I told the gardener I doubted that such a theory would make much difference in my life, or in the lives of my clients.
Andy looked at me, smiled and said, "I'm not really interested in your clients' problems. After all, I'm not a therapist. I think their therapy is better left to you. I'm much more interested in why you didn't find any wisdom in India."
I was flabbergasted. "I thought you said the truth I was looking for was not to be found in India."
Smiling, the old gardener said, "It was there when you were there; now it's here in England with you. Don't forget, Eric, Wherever you go, Truth is with you always."
Before I could ask him what he meant by this puzzling reply, the old gardener stood up, lifted the handles of his wheelbarrow, and trundled away—leaving me to wonder what on earth he was talking about.
And that was the last I saw of Andy the gardener, although I must confess that the concepts he shared with me that day continued to resonate in my mind throughout the rest of the conference—and beyond.
Chapter 3
Mrs. Taylor's Story
When I had finished telling the story of my first visit to the Old Swan Inn, I found myself looking into the startled, uncomprehending faces of Janet, Tom and Peter. After an awkward pause, I attempted to gauge their reactions by saying, "I thought to myself how ridiculous it was for some old gardener with absolutely no training in the field to come out with such outlandish statements."
"That is quite a concept," Janet remarked, "especially coming from an old gardener."
"That's how I felt, too, at the time," I replied. "But believe me, Janet, this guy is different. To be honest with you, there's a mystical quality about him that sometimes unsettles me enormously. A good part of the time we talked I had the strongest feeling that he knew something I didn't, and that feeling made me quite insecure and vulnerable around him. Later that same day, after lunch, I went to hear a Doctor Martin's presentation on schizophrenia. But it all sounded just like the same old lectures I'd heard a thousand times before. Apart from that, the inevitable arguments broke out as practitioners from various approaches adamantly swore that their approach was better than the others. At one point I felt like screaming and walking out of the meeting hall."
"I know that feeling," Peter chuckled.
"That evening I lay in bed, unable to sleep, thinking about the whole situation. Then the old gardener's words came back to me: The answer you seek is contained in and created by the three very precious spiritual gifts of Universal Mind, Universal Consciousness and Universal Thought.' During my schooling I'd had very little training on any of these three subjects. Certainly consciousness was rarely mentioned, and thought was believed to have little or nothing to do with mental stability."
"If I remember correctly," I continued, "mind was defined in all of my university courses as a synonym for the brain. Consciousness was defined as a state; a person was either conscious or unconscious. Thought was talked about in our psychology courses, but in a very limited way, as a blanket word for the content of cognition, and it had very little to do with psychological nature. Now here was this gardener trying to tell me that thought was part of the solution to my dilemma. To say the least, I thought the old fellow's words were oversimplified, so I dismissed the whole conversation, feeling it was absolutely ludicrous. Yet,
(fragment missing)
and you have the power to think whatever you want. Perhaps having a more positive attitude towards life would help you greatly'