Last week, I wrote about how my mindset of late has been, “What can you do for me? What can I get from you?” I’ve been thinking about that more in depth and how that perspective causes all sorts of problems.
Philosopher Martin Buber wrote about this in his book I and Thou. I haven’t read his book, and only conducted a cursory search on the internet about it so I apologize if I get some facts wrong. From my understanding, Buber says we engage in the world in one of two ways: I/it and I/thou.
She’s a person! She’s a building!
In the I/it relationship, we collect data, analyze it, classify it, and theorize about it. The object is viewed as a thing to be used or put to some purpose. This makes sense when we encounter something like a hammer, “What can I do with this? What do I need it for?” It also makes sense when we’re conducting research, or any time when detachment is necessary.
In the I/thou relationship, we engage with the encountered object in its entirety, not in pieces. The I/thou relationship asks us to make ourselves available to another, to understand them, to share with them, to have a dialogue. In essence, to see the other as a human rather than an object.
The I/it relationship is extremely problematic when that’s the only way we engage with others. I see the I/it dynamic reflected in Bill Cosby, who admitted to buying drugs in order to have sex with women. Duuuuude. That is the quintessential I/it relationship. Cosby didn’t think of these women as human beings, but rather as objects that existed for his pleasure. It didn’t matter whether these women wanted to have sex with him, he was going to have sex with them anyway. That is messed up. This is what is meant by the objectification of women. Our rape culture turns women into “its,” thought of as a collection of parts as opposed to people.
Objectification is not relegated to women only, by the way, men are seen as objects too. So are kids, animals, etc. What happened here? Why do we think only of our own selfish needs and not of other people? I can’t answer that question, but I think Buber has a point when he suggests we start viewing other people as “thou” instead of “it.” I know for me, I try to be open and present in all my encounters and not think to myself, “What can I get from you?” When I turn people into objects, I often get called out on it, like when I approached a mail carrier and launched into my question without first saying, “Hello.” He kept saying, “Hello,” until I understood he wanted me to say, “Hello,” back. Nobody likes to be treated as a machine, even if you only have a quick question for them.
Why am I harping on this and why am I bringing it up in a blog about spirituality? For one, I am deeply disturbed by our tendency to view each other as toys to play with and then cast aside. For another, I know when I view all beings – not only people – as “thous,” as entities worthy and deserving of love and respect, I open myself up to moments of transcendence, which Buber also mentions. When I have a reverence for everything, the world shimmers. Not to mention, I start thinking of how I may be of service, which is the key ingredient for a blissful life, according to my spiritual teacher.
I dream of a world where we start viewing each other as human beings, not objects. A world where we practice care, attention, love, and respect when we’re interacting with others. A world where we change our mindset and treat each other with dignity. A world where we move from seeing each other as hammers to humans.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I want to be as comfortable as possible. Give me air-conditioning and memory-foam mattress toppers and fast internet. I want my surroundings to be as cushy as I can make them. After I’ve worked so hard to make my life comfortable, at the very end of the day, if I have any energy left over, then I might think about other people. This is not good.
There’s nothing wrong with taking care of myself, with putting myself first, because if I don’t no one else will, but striving for a cushy life means I don’t tolerate discomfort at my expense. And it takes more and more for me to feel comfortable. Like the princess and the pea who slept on a hundred mattresses and could feel the pea stuck between the bottom two. This focus on me has made me a little self-centered. My mindset of late has been, “What can you do for me? What can I get from you?”
A cushy life is great and all, but I’d much rather have a blissful one.
Friends, this is no way to live and does not lead to any sort of fulfillment. My spiritual teacher says the formula for bliss is service minus information. I have been decidedly low on service and high on information, so of course I’m not feeling bliss. Some people have a disdain for information, calling it useless, but that’s not true. Information is only useless if it’s not applied. Information is like fruit in a bowl. The fruit is only good if I eat it. Right now, instead of using all the fruit in my bowl, it’s going to waste.
Service is the key to keeping my fruit from rotting. There’s a different mindset around true service. I serve others because it’s fun and it’s free, not because I get any benefit, although that’s a nice perk. When I serve others out of a sense of obligation or because I “should,” it’s no longer service and instead a recipe for resentment. Service starts with a shift in mentality from “me, me, me,” to “we, we, we.” And when I shift my perspective, opportunities to serve present themselves, from giving someone a ride to the airport, to holding the door open for someone, to starting an orphanage.
Service often gets relegated to that one weekend of the month volunteering for so-and-so, but I’m finding it’s important to make service a part of my daily life. I’m such an extreme person that I think service has to be a grand affair. It doesn’t. Service starts in the mind, and that means thinking of others. My challenge right now is to serve myself and to serve others. I have a tendency to be “all or nothing,” so I need to not overextend myself too much. A little bit of stress leads to growth; a lot of stress leads to illness and injury. A cushy life is great and all, but what is it costing me? Maybe my life needs to be a little less cushy and a lot more service-oriented. After all, bliss feels a lot better than comfort.
I dream of a world where we serve each other. A world where life is a little less “me, me, me” and more “we, we, we.” A world where instead of striving for a cushy life, we strive for a blissful one.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
What is the point of meditation? Why do people do it? Some people say they meditate because they want to calm down, or concentrate better, or lower their blood pressure. These are all great reasons, but I view them as side benefits. The real point of my meditation practice is to blow my mind.
I heard a discourse the other day that said when we contemplate the infinite our brain short circuits and that’s what causes liberation. Liberation in this sense means my consciousness becomes one with the Cosmic Consciousness. Something about hearing that discourse, which I’ve paraphrased, really struck me because it’s true.
My mind can’t comprehend infinity. In fact, my mind can’t even comprehend a billion. I don’t know what a billion looks like, even when it’s broken down into an analogy such as, “A billion pencils would wrap around the Earth’s equator twice,” or whatever. All I know is that a billion is a big number.
The mind, like a balloon, can only expand so much until it pops.
However, by thinking about infinity, my mind gets blown. My mind can’t conceive of infinity, my mind expands, and I experience liberation. It’s like a balloon – the balloon can only blow up so much before it pops. In other words, the point of meditation is to pop my mind like a balloon. This is a fairly universal concept, by the way. In Zen Buddhism, koans are employed for this purpose. An example of a koan is, “What’s the sound of one hand clapping?” The point of koans to me seems to be to exhaust the analytic intellect and the ego to get to the “God mind” underneath. We all have an intuitive self, a “God mind” if you will, and the point of meditation is to keep growing that God mind until the God mind is all that’s left.
I have to say, contemplating the sound of one hand clapping would frustrate me to no end. I think I would sputter in rage and frustration and never try such deep rumination again. Thank goodness I don’t have to because I have a mantra. A mantra in the original sense of the word, means a word or phrase that liberates the mind. This would be a word or phrase to blow the mind, if you will. Popular mantras these days are Om Namah Shivaya, Hare Krsna, etc. because the thinking is if a person meditates on God-like beings, Shiva and Krsna, namely, that the person’s mind will expand, and they too, will experience liberation.
What’s cool about this is I don’t have to die first or be a different person before I can experience liberation. Liberation happens because I focus on the infinite in the form of a mantra. That’s pretty mind blowing when you think about it.
I dream of a world where we all blow our minds. A world where we are no longer limited by our human brains. A world where we keep progressing and keep expanding internally until there is no longer a container that can hold us.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I live in a very transient area. People move here and move away all the time. It’s one of the most painful aspects of living here, especially for a person like me who clings to people like a barnacle. “Don’t leave me! Stay!” Except, the thing is, even if a person is physically present, it doesn’t mean they’re emotionally present, or that they’ll be emotionally present all the time. Well crap. What’s a person to do?
I’m going to pass on a secret: Be there for yourself. Counter to all the messages we’re being fed, the solution to fears of abandonment is not to find that one perfect person to spend the rest of our life with. The solution is to give that to ourselves. To say to myself, “Rebekah, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, I’m not ever going anywhere. I’ll stay.” People, and pets for that matter, come into and out of our lives, but the two constant presences are ourselves and the Supreme. My spiritual teacher says God is our one true friend, our constant, forever companion. But how often are we nurturing these relationships? How often are we instead taking them for granted?
Won’t you stay? Oh, I have to stay for me? Oh, right.
One of the most powerful messages I’ve gleaned from being in recovery is that I’m in a relationship with my Higher Power. That God is not Santa Claus, rewarding me when I’m good and punishing me when I’m bad. And that just like any other relationship, we need to spend time together to improve it. We need to communicate with one another, to talk and to listen. It’s easy to neglect the relationship because it’s always there, to take it for granted, but I’m reminded again, it’s one of the most important relationships in my life.
The other most important relationship in my life is the one with me. Am I here for me? Am I taking care of me? Am I treating myself like a friend? Saying nice things to myself, encouraging myself, forgiving myself for mistakes? My inclination is to turn outward, to focus on outside relationships, other people, what they’re doing, what they’re saying, how they feel. My meditation practice, however, is about turning inward, asking instead what am I doing, what am I saying, how do I feel?
A few weeks ago I went to a group meditation and I’m the only one that showed up. I know, that sounds weird because if no one showed up then it was solo meditation, but the intention was to meditate with others. I felt so awkward, sitting in a space that belongs to a friend, meditating alone when usually I’m surrounded by others. But then the awkwardness faded as I felt the presence of my Higher Power, and the presence of me. Instead of being by myself, I was with myself. No longer did I feel alone because I had me and I had my Higher Power. It was one of the sweetest meditations I’ve experienced for awhile. So in answer to the question, “Won’t you stay?” the answer is yes, Rebekah, I will.
I dream of a world where we develop the relationships with ourselves and with the divine. A world where we feel the presence of us and something greater than us. A world where we remember we are never alone because we have our one true companion by our side.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I’ve been thinking about good and evil a lot lately. Maybe because I’m re-watching Star Wars with friends. What I find interesting is how so often people liken the forces of good and evil as a devil or angel on our shoulder where one force eventually wins out. I think good and evil is more nuanced than that, and liken each to either end of a tug of war battle. That also means when a person is closer to the middle, as in neither side has a clear victory, both sides tug harder for dominance. This isn’t just speculation, by the way, I notice the good and evil tug of war manifesting in the real world. Not only as a voice in my head, but in tangible ways.
For example, here’s something that happened earlier this week that’s not evil, but was clearly not engaging with the force of good. I noticed my neighbor’s plums fall over the fence that separates our properties. My neighbor is on the down slope of a hill and they will never be able to reach the plums that grow on my side of the fence because it’s too high and there’s a barrier. But because I’m higher up, those plums hang at a perfect level for me to pick them. The very top of their tree is about two feet above my head; in other words, the perfect picking height.
The “forbidden fruit,” if you will.
As I glanced out my window, I noticed ripe plums rotting on the ground. “Just look at those ripe plums going to waste!” I said. “How could I let that happen? Besides, those plums sit on my side of the fence, so is it really stealing? I mean, what’s ownership anyway.” With all those thoughts in mind, I started picking those plums, and wouldn’t you know it, a piece of dirt or perhaps a small rock flew into my eye. Ladies and gentlemen, the force of good communicating to me that, yes, it still counts as stealing. It is no coincidence I experienced pain after my somewhat-questionable actions.
The force of good shows up in other ways too. When our hearts start to pound, or our hands begin to sweat when we know we’re engaging in nefarious behavior, that’s the force of good saying, “Hey, maybe rethink this.” There are some people that ignore those messages though. What happens in those situations is the force of good exerts itself less and less, which makes sense because in a tug of war battle, if one side is likely to win, the other stops pulling as hard.
Unlike in real tug of war though, neither good nor evil stops pulling. They’re very persistent those two. That means there’s always a chance for redemption. My spiritual teacher was such a believer in redemption that his first disciple was a known thief. In fact, my teacher taught the guy meditation after the thief pulled out a dagger and threatened to rob and kill my teacher! After the meditation lesson, the thief gave up his old ways and really turned over a new leaf. So, yeah, there’s always a chance for good. Similarly though, there’s always a chance for evil.
I guess what I’m saying here is it’s easy to get complacent. To think, “I’m a good person so I would never do that,” or “I’m such a screw up, there’s no hope for me,” but neither are true. There’s a thin line between good and evil and it’s easy to start moving in either direction, which I think is illustrated quite well in Star Wars. Maybe we need to adopt Mad-Eye Moody’s motto from the Harry Potter books and maintain “Constant vigilance!”
I dream of a world where we pay attention to what we’re doing. A world where we understand when the universe is trying to communicate with us, to encourage us to side with the force of good, and we do so. A world where we understand there’s not a lot of difference between good and evil so it’s up to us to decide which side of the tug of war battle we’d like to be on.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
First of all, I want to say I’m not judging other people for unfriending or unfollowing. There are some people who don’t deserve the pleasure of our company because they cause us harm physically, mentally, or emotionally. I’m using the topic of unfriending as an entry point to discuss a spiritual concept.
In this day and age, it’s easy to surround ourselves solely with people who feel the way we do. Dissolving a friendship is as easy as clicking a button or ignoring a text message. If we don’t like something someone has to say, we don’t have to listen to it. But at what cost?
Click, click, friendship OVER.
I read an article recently about how a liberal professor is terrified by his liberal students. He said, “The student-teacher dynamic has been re-envisioned along a line that’s simultaneously consumerist and hyper-protective, giving each and every student the ability to claim Grievous Harm in nearly any circumstance, after any affront, and a teacher’s formal ability to respond to these claims is limited at best.”
He goes on to say he once saw an adjunct professor not get his contract renewed after students complained that he exposed them to “offensive” texts written by Edward Said and Mark Twain. The adjunct’s response that the texts were meant to be a little upsetting, only “fueled the students’ ire and sealed his fate,” according to the professor.
What surprised me even more as I read the article was learning Oxford canceled an abortion debate because it would have imperiled the “welfare and safety of our students.” Have we become so obsessed with maintaining comfort that we can’t allow any differences of opinion? That we’re not open to having our ideas questioned?
From a spiritual perspective, when we start cutting ourselves off from others, when we start making judgment calls about who’s right, who’s wrong, and what’s good, what’s bad, we move further away from the divine. If the goal of my life is to experience a sense of one-ness with God, then I can’t practice separateness. My spiritual teacher says those who follow the path of the divine “do not acknowledge the baneful and delusory classifications created by society,” because those classifications contribute to crudeness and staticity, to engaging more with Prakrti than consciousness, which then in turn “speeds unhampered in the innermost recesses of the heart.”
Again, some people deserve to be loved from afar, but they aren’t any less deserving of love and respect. And those who are good people, but who have different opinions from us? There are many treasures to be found in those friendships. I have some dear friends who do not share my views on things like diet and religion, but instead of letting those differences divide us, we work to find our similarities instead. There is something amazing and sublime about finding the ways in which we are the same instead of pointing out how we’re different. And sublime is where I’m at these days.
I dream of a world where we have more tolerance for differences. A world where we seek to find what unites us instead of divides us. A world where we’re not so quick to cut ourselves off from people. A world where we seek one-ness in as many ways as we can.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Sometimes I feel like a marathon runner who forgot where the finish line is. It’s like blackberries growing on the side of the course distracted me and I decided to veer off to pick them. But then my hands got sticky so I had to find some water to wash them off with. And then while looking for water, I found a lake and decided to take a swim, and by that point the finish line is a distant memory.
Doesn’t life seem like that sometimes? To paraphrase Elbert Hubbard, one damn thing after another? I keep chasing after one thing or another thinking it will make me happy, but it never does. Or I’m happy for about five seconds and then it’s on to the next thing. I am on a search for infinite happiness. I’ve been sampling the goodies Earth has to offer and infinite, unlimited happiness ain’t here because by definition everything on Earth is limited and finite. This is why people turn to spirituality in the first place, we are craving mind-blowing bliss of a permanent nature. How do I find that? Especially when there are so many cool things to savor? It’s easy to get distracted, I mean, just look at those blackberry bushes.
I don’t know why this picture says, “permanent happiness” to me but it does.
Some people say the way to no longer get distracted by the world is to withdraw from it. Go to a cave or a cabin in the woods with no wifi or cellphone service. Meditate all day long and immerse yourself in thinking about God. I don’t know about you, but after a week of that, I start to go stir crazy. In the words of my father, I become “bored out of my gourd.” There are so many cool things in the world! I don’t want to shut myself off from everything and everyone. Doesn’t sound very fun to me.
This dovetails into the post I wrote last week about the the reincarnation merry-go-round. I said the only way to get off the ride is by making everything the divine, because that way we’re like Teflon – nothing sticks to us. We don’t incur the consequences of any actions negative or positive. For instance, when I eat an apple think, “I am eating God in the form of this apple.” That way I’m savoring all that the world has to offer, but I’m not getting caught up in it. I’m not getting distracted or swerving off course from my ultimate goal of merger with the divine.
This concept is what I believe the Bible verse means in 1 John 2:15: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world.” What we’re striving for is remembering what the true form and the true source of everything is.
I can count the times I’ve been able to accomplish this task on one hand. It’s hard, yo, but when I’ve been able to feel into it, to really know the apple I’m eating is God in the form of this apple, wow. Incredible. Amazing. What I love about this practice is instead of making bliss and enlightenment a future goal, something that happens to me down the road, I’m doing it now. I’m immersing myself in the cosmic ocean and swimming in it this very moment.
To recap, making everything the divine, or the divine in the form of an object, not only stops the reincarnation cycle, but also ensures I’m still on the path toward my goal AND experiencing bliss along the way. I’d call that a win.
I dream of a world where we’re all able to experience bliss. A world where we’re able to feel everything comes from the divine and is the divine. A world where we make enlightenment a current goal. A world where we chase after what will make us happy permanently.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Reincarnation is a belief system that makes sense to me; it fits in with the experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve met. Sometimes I meet someone and our connection is instantaneous, as if we’ve known each other before. And I’ve visited places where my feet seemed to know the way even if my brain didn’t, which suggests to me I’ve been there before in another life.
Reincarnation seems to me like a merry-go-round: I’m born, I live, I die. I’m born, I live, I die. On and on it goes. Death is like changing to a different horse – the circumstances are a bit different, but I’m still on the merry-go-round. I’m starting to think I’d like to get off the ride and try something new. But if death is not an exit strategy, just a chance to change horses, what to do?
I couldn’t find a merry-go-round, but this is pretty close.
According to the spiritual philosophy I’ve read,the only thing to do is to stop taking ownership for everything and make it about God/Brahma/Source/the divine. Instead of thinking, “I’m browsing the internet,” think, “The divine is browsing the internet.” I know, this is where my merry-go-round analogy falls apart, but what I’m trying to say, is instead of making everything about me, I have to make everything about God if I want to get out of the cycle of reincarnation. And that means everything, which already fits in with the notion I wrote about that everything contains consciousness.
It means God is the one typing this blogpost, it means God is the one reading this blogpost, it means God is this blogpost. I can’t take credit for any of my actions because as soon as I identify with my ego, that means for better or for worse I have to undergo the consequences and repercussions. Sometimes the consequences are pretty cool, like winning an award, but if the goal of my life is really to dance with the divine and stop the reincarnation cycle, then I don’t want any consequences from my actions either negative or positive.
There’s a pretty popular Sanskrit chant/mantra that sums this up well. Some people chant it before eating or when they get out of the shower. The translation is:
Salutations to the ancestors, salutations to inventors. The act of offering is Brahma; that which is offered is Brahma; the one to whom the offering is made is Brahma; and the person making the offering is Brahma. One will merge in Brahma after completing the duty assigned to him/her by Brahma.
I know that’s a lot of the word “Brahma.” Like I said to my dad yesterday, don’t get hung up on the word. Find one that resonates. For me, right now, saying Brahma doesn’t mean much. But if I say everything is God or the divine, that works better. The point is to start to get out of my own head a little and recognize the world is a bigger, broader place than what I realize. And also not to take things so seriously because instead, I recognize I’m an instrument. Life isn’t about me and my happiness, it’s about what can be worked through me. When I start to view things from that perspective, I’m closer to getting off the merry-go-round.
I dream of a world where we set our egos aside. A world where we let ourselves be instruments. A world where we make everything about the divine. A world where we stop accumulating actions and reactions and finally get off the reincarnation merry-go-round.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
One of the things that’s been bugging me is the disposable nature of the goods our society makes. Appliances aren’t built to last anymore, they’re built to break, because if something breaks then we’ll buy another one.
A few years ago I had to return a cable box or internet router, something like that, to AT&T. The UPS store THREW AWAY perfectly good power chargers and cables because AT&T doesn’t take them back. That means working, functional cords and cables end up in a landfill. I’m angry just thinking about it. Where is the reverence for life? Why aren’t we holding inanimate objects as sacred? Should inanimate even be sacred? Is something only sacred if it has a soul? Do inanimate objects have a soul?
When I stare into the eyes of something living and breathing, like a cat, it’s easy to say, “Yes, this creature has a soul.” But what about something like a rock? Or something man-made like concrete?
Right now I’m trying to hold everything as sacred.
In my quest for the answer, I turned to the work of my spiritual teacher, who seems to have written about everything. He said there are two components to everything in the world: consciousness and Prakriti. Prakrti is a Sanskrit word that has no English equivalent but is similar to nature, or creation. Prakrti has to use consciousness to create anything; it’s the basic building block for all of life. It’s like a sculptor using clay to mold different shapes: The clay becomes a pot, a vase, a cow, but its origination is still clay.
Obviously there’s a difference between a cat and a calla lily (many differences, actually) and part of that difference according to my spiritual teacher, is the exertion of Prakrti. When the force of Prakrti is strong, the creation becomes more dense or crude. When the force of Prakrti is weaker, the creation becomes more light or subtle. If I’m maintaining my clay analogy here, Prakrti can be likened to soil and consciousness to water. The more Prakrti, the more soil, the thicker the clay. The more consciousness, the more water, the thinner the clay. A rock is very crude and dense so it has more Prakrti than consciousness, but it still has consciousness.
If a rock has consciousness, what does that mean for us? For me, yesterday as I walked down the street, my feet pounding the pavement, it meant the world took on a different hue. It meant I starting thinking about how concrete has a consciousness. How everything around me is sacred and an expression of consciousness/source/the divine. No longer is a piece of cardboard a meaningless bit of disposable packaging, but instead something more precious that it pains me to toss away so easily. Everything suddenly becomes more valuable and something I want to express my reverence for.
I’m not sure I can articulate what I mean, but there’s something about knowing that the keys upon which I type have consciousness that makes the experience more transcendent and special. It brings out the caretaker in me who wants to make sure every object is used to its fullest capacity. It changes my mindset from, “I can throw this away and always get another one,” to, “I want to cherish and reuse this for as long as I can.”
I dream of a world where we all have a reverence for everything. A world where we treat ourselves and everything around us as sacred. A world where we cherish each and every thing in the known universe because we recognize it, too, has consciousness.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
The post I wrote last week about chasing likes made me question everything else in my life. Where am I headed? What is it I hold dear, and what, exactly is the goal of my life? Up until this week, I would say I’ve had a foot each on two different horses. One horse is headed toward self-realization and service to humanity. The other horse is headed toward name and fame, wealth, love, and making money doing what I love.
When I realized accolades and accomplishments don’t have any lasting effect, that they don’t make me happy for long, I started to wonder about the other things I’ve been chasing after. What about the desire to be a best-selling author? Or to find a great love? Or to make a living writing and talking about spirituality? That last one could turn into a whole separate blogpost, but for now, all I’ll say is I’ve realized I don’t have to monetize everything in order for it to be valuable.
Don’t get me wrong, I would LOVE to see this in person, but should that be the goal of my life?
What about all those once-in-a-lifetime experiences? All the places I’ve traveled to? Is that the goal of my life? Should it be? Chasing experience after experience? My dear friend Amal Jacobson discussed this in an essay he wrote about such an experience. He said, “But what did it all amount to? Experiences I could pocket away like fashion accessories? Something I could uselessly recount to somebody someday as proof that I had lived?” That’s been the case for me. When I want to seem exciting and interesting I’ll trot out a travel story, or casually mention that time I did whatever. But for what? As proof I lived?
I’m going to quote the great bard himself, William Shakespeare, who said:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
In the end, the things I’ve longed for will crumble into dust. My life is but a brief candle, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing unless I change which horse I’m riding. I’m coming to the same conclusion as Jim Carrey who said, “I hope everybody could get rich and famous and will have everything they ever dreamed of, so they will know that it’s not the answer.” I think you’re right Jim, those things are not the answer. Infinite happiness does not come from finite objects, it can only come from something infinite. That something is God/cosmic consciousness/brahma/higher power/source – an entity with many names. I will gladly accept blessings along the way such as a great love, but I can no longer make finite things the goal of my life.
It’s become clear to me that the goal of my life is to merge with the Supreme and to help others along the way. To be of service in any way I can, but to recognize first and foremost I am an instrument. I am a finite self looking for an infinite Self and nothing short of that will give me the infinite happiness I seek. I get glimpses of infinity when I meditate – not all the time, but enough to assure me I’m headed in the right direction. I have that wish for others too.
I dream of a world where we all take a look at what the goal of our lives is. A world where we recognize what will give us the happiness we truly seek. A world where we each dance with the divine and awaken the spirit within.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.