Friends,

I don’t know about you, but I’m not an enlightened yogi, and I don’t think any of the people I’ve met in Bhagavad Gita classes are either. None of them can shoot fire from their eyes, make an apple manifest from thin air, or float. What they can do is melt my heart. With few exceptions, people attending these classes are beautiful souls, hungry for joy, and fumbling at the lock of transcendence with keys that don’t quite fit. But they keep coming. I’ve often wondered why. Then I came across the following story told by the late Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, and it gave me a clue.

Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov (c.1700-1760), the healer and mystic who founded Hasidic Judaism, looked out at the world and saw disaster stalking everywhere. So he went into the forest, found the place where rituals were performed, lit a sacred fire, recited mystic prayers—and the disaster disappeared.

In the following generation, disaster again rose its head. But the Baal Shem Tov had passed away, and his disciples did not know the location of the place of rituals. They only knew how to build the sacred fire and recite the mystic prayers. But it was enough, and again disaster was avoided.

Then came the next generation, and when disaster again threatened, followers knew neither the location of rituals nor how to light a sacred fire. They knew only the mystic prayers. But once again, it was enough, and disaster dissolved away.

Then came yet another generation, and this generation knew nothing of sacred places, healing fires, or mystic prayers. All they knew was the story of the Baal Shem Tov and how the generations after him had worked with whatever tools they had to heal the world.

So, that was the story they told. They told it to one another, to others, and the people listened to it and passed it along. Words—just words. But the words were enough to inspire a new generation, and by the telling of the story, once again disaster was averted.

And us? We’re not mystic healers. We’re not even exceptional students. We are the tail end of a long inheritance, frayed, fragile, pieces missing. But we can tell the story and pass it on. We can tell it wherever we are, in classrooms, in kitchens, in parks or any place where people gather, wherever ears are open.

And when the story is told from the heart, something moves in the hearts of others. The mystery rises from obscurity, and the world shifts a little, and maybe, just maybe, disaster steps back.

Don’t wait to be holy. No need. Just keep coming, and we will regale one another with stories from long ago and far away—or from yesterday and next door. Everyone is the vehicle for a powerful story. It just needs to be told from the heart.

Tell your story. That’s how we fight disaster. That’s how we survive and grow.

Fondly,
Yogesvara