The Boatman

Life is a boat ride across the river of worldly existence. As we are born in this samsara, we should to swim but who who operates a boat, who is the boatmen? A boatman is a person who has a hand in operating a boat. The boatman or the ferryman is a guide for both the River and the path to Truth. In spiritual sense, he is positioned between ordinary world and enlightenment, and those who seek enlightenment and are open to guidance will find what they need.
In Mahāyāna Buddhism the boatman-like bodhisattva - one who aspires to achieve buddha-hood along with other sentient beings. A boatmen in Buddhism guides a person and are able to help others find the Way or enlightenment.
This Mystical function of the boatman transporting the person from the one hand on another, is present at many myths.
These claims and the identity of the boatmen are related to the story of the boatman Khevat from Ramayana, in which Khevat ferries lord Rama, Sita and Lakshmana across the river, at the end of trip Sita wants to pay the boatman a fee, with the only thing she has, her ring, but the Khevat rejects it saying to Rama: “we are of the same profession, you carry people across the river of life (samsara) to the far shore of liberation (moksha) and I carry people from this bank of the river to the other side. Rama you are also a boatman (tum bhi Khevat), how can I charge you?”
But can we always rely just on the boatman?
This well-known sufi story about the illiterate boatman and the professor, is teaching this lesson retold in Masnavi:

‘A grammatist once got into a boat.

That self-regarding man looked at the boatman

And said, ‘Do you know grammar?’ ‘No,’ he said.

‘And half your life has gone!’ he chided him.

The boatman’s heart was broken by the pain,

but for the moment made his answer silence.

The wind then blew the boat into a whirpool.

The boatman hollered to the grammatist,

‘Do you know how to swim at all, please tell me?’

He said, ‘I don’t, you shrewd and handsome man!’

‘Then all your life has gone, dear grammatist,’

he said. ‘Our boat is sinking in these whirlpools’.

Absorption’s needed here, not grammar, see!

If you’re absorbed, jump in. There’s no danger.

The ocean wave will raise the dead aloft.

How can the living man escape the sea?

And if you’ve died to human qualities,

the sea of secrets sets you at its summit.

And you who’ve called the people asinine,

now you’re the one who’s like an ass on ice.

World’s greatest scholar of your time you may be,

but note this world is passing – watch the time!

Now we stitched up the grammatist in order

to tell you of the grammar of absorption.

The heart of all the learned sciences,

my learned friend, you’ll learn in self-effacement.

That pitcher is our learned sciences,

that caliph is the Tigris of God’s knowledge.

Full jars we’re carrying to the river Tigris,

and we’re an ass, though we don’t know it yet.

At least the Bedouin man could be excused -

from distant parts, he didn’t know the Tigris.

If he, like us, had known about the Tigris

would he have lugged his jar from place to place?

No, surely, if he’d known about the Tigris,

he would have smashed his jar upon a rock’.

Masnavi 1.2847-2864, trans. A. Williams

 Sooner or later, you should to become the boatman itself or to learn to swim on this River.We can make mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to swim. The swim is not a race, but a journey, and this is a great swim, and a fantastic journey.