Question: A fish asks God, “Lord, can you make the ocean smaller?” “Why?” God is surprised. “Because I don’t know how to swim.” God replies, “Learn to swim, and the ocean will seem smaller to you.”

We live in this world and often complain about life. Essentially, we do not know how to swim in this ocean of life. How can we learn to swim?

Answer: We do not have any natural abilities for it. We were created in egoism. We can criticize each other, but we rarely think well of one another. Achieving a state where each person is a friend, companion, and brother to others is, in essence, a fantasy.

Question: Then, why did the Creator fill this “aquarium” and place us in it like fish without teaching us how to swim?

Answer: He gave us the opportunity to learn on our own.

Question: What does this give me?

Answer: It gives us the chance to be the creators of our own lives.

Question: So, I am essentially a human with “fins” and “gills,” equipped for this water, but I do not know how to swim?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do I need to develop these “fins and gills”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How and when do we come to understand this?

Answer: We understand it when we have no other choice. Either we line up and march toward the cliff or learn to swim.

Question: So do we need to be brought to this dead-end?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How should we correctly perceive this ocean of life?

Answer: It is open before us. It all depends on how we relate to each other. That is still a problem. We always think that if others do well, it will somehow be worse for us.

How can one convince a person that this is not the case? On the contrary, let us work on ourselves so that everyone feels good and you feel good with everyone, and everyone feels good with you. But people resist this idea.

Question: So even here, the fish asks God, “Make the ocean smaller.” It does not say, “Give me the ability; teach me to swim.” So, we are not asking, “Teach us to swim in this ocean.” We are not asking this of the Creator, or are we?

Answer: No.

Question: Are we asking for the ocean to be different?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is this also inherent in us?

Answer: Of course it is inherent in us! We cannot change ourselves. Our egoism is truly the opposite of nature.

Question: What does it mean spiritually to learn to swim?

Answer: Spiritually “learning to swim” means feeling the sea of the Creator’s love around you and knowing how to remain in it.

Question: In this love?

Answer: Yes, and when we finally learn to move our arms and legs a little, we will start to understand that we know how to swim.

But we can truly learn to “swim” only when we turn solely to the Creator. Because the sea, the ocean, the waves, the sky, the earth, everything, is Him. We need to learn to be within Him. And to be within Him means to exist in the qualities of bestowal, love, and connection with everyone. That is what it means to learn to “swim.”
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/14/24

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