There is a story about the poet Rabindranath Tagore. One night, while staying on a houseboat, he was reading by candlelight. He need not have lit a candle; the full moon was illuminating the sky and the waters around him, but the poet, deeply engrossed in a book, failed to notice his surroundings. The night was pervaded by a deep stillness, broken only occasionally by the flap of a bird's wings as it passed over his boat or the splash of water as a fish leapt above the surface of a lake.

Finally, exhausted, he blew out the candle. Doing so, he was suddenly struck by the natural beauty of his surroundings. The pale yellow glow of the candle had been keeping out the moon's brilliant silver beams. A fish jumped, and he looked out to see it splashing back into the water. A few white clouds drifted through the sky and reflected onto the surface of the still, silver waters.

"What a fool I have been!" Tagore murmured to himself. "I have been searching in books for beauty, and all the while was knocking at my door, waiting to be let in. Searching for beauty with the light of a candle, I kept the moonlight at bay."

In the same way, Tagore realized, it is the pale, flickering light of our ego that prevents us from being bathed in the brilliant light of God. All we need do is blow out the candle of the ego, step out of the cabin of our selfish desires, and see the beauty of God in all its glory.

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