The One Lost

There is a story in the New Testament of the Bible told by Jesus, about the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep and goes after the one that is lost.  On the surface it looks like bad economics.  Cut your losses.  Don’t chase after them.  You only lost one percent, not so bad.  But the story is more about Nirvana, Oneness, than about economics.  If you can see and feel from the heart, as does the shepherd, you know that the lost sheep separates the whole, which is 100 sheep.  They are all equal and thus One.  To be lost is to be separated from the whole.  The herd is incomplete.  So the shepherd trusts in the 99 and goes to seek that which will restore wholeness, oneness.  There is not a sliding scale of value, no rating as better than, and certainly no punishment for being lost, drifting off.  We are all called on the spiritual journey to restore the reality of Oneness.  We all participate in it, if we have to eyes to see.