LIFE GOES ON

A brick wall... Something solid and immoveable... It can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what role the wall is playing in your life. But I guess in my case, it represents blockage. The wall keeps things out, but also holds things in. I feel that I'm chugging along pretty well in life, but there's always something more I could be doing - something more I wish I had done or read or took on as a travel destination. Where to begin?

In order to get somewhere, one must first know where it is that one wishes to go. For some, the dream is to be married, have children, and grow one's family. Others are called to great wealth or to some higher spiritual purpose for their lives. For me, I'm still not certain. I'm trying to let the Spirit guide me. Quite frankly, I'm skeptical of the traditional flavor of life with the wife and children and whether or not it's for me. I still very much have the needs of the flesh, but at the same time see how the modern world tends to tear families apart. It's my hypothesis that the new age which is dawning all around us now is tearing down the social norms we hold dear so that they can be built back up again at some later date. A greater love encompasses that which does not stop at duty to clan or country, and that's what this dissolution is all about. Perhaps all this emphasis on wars for religious reasons (suicide bombers and Muslim fundamentalists) are set in the public eye by Spirit for us to see the folly of such beliefs and how they impede and wall up our consciousness. All that is, is. It simply is. Our very lives are a miracle - the fact that we draw breath and sustain awareness through each moment on this planet. Just be mindful of this. Just know that you're here on the earth with other creatures of like mind. That's where true spirituality begins, I think. We are all born to die, so what really defines us is what we do with that knowledge particularly when it truly begins to sink in to our psyches on a visceral level. Doing God's work means to let go. Life is a process of getting and letting go, and if we can accept both with an equally sober demeanor, we will have absorbed the lesson. From a Christian perspective, look at Matthew, Chapter 10:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.

I'm especially fond of Matthew 10:36, as it's the passage that Lieutenant Morant asked to have as his epitaph at the end of the movie Breaker Morant - it made so much sense in the context of the story (and it was based on a true event - check it out if you're into military history especially).
It is my understanding that Jesus here is the Way - the Truth - and that which secures the deliverance of that part of us which is eternal into Heaven - that great world beyond mortal death. So why should a man's foes be they of his own household? They become such if obeisance to them clouds his orientation to the Source. This goes for anything we hold onto, whether it be a feeling, an idea, a possession, etc. The only constant in the universe is change.

Then there is, of course, the Buddhist philosophy. Here's a retelling of the elephant and the wise men story in a book called Zen for Americans, by Soyen Shaku:

There was once a powerful king in India, who called all his blind retainers together to his court, and then brought out one of his largest elephants before them, asking what they thought of it. Being born blind, of course they had never seen an elephant, and now in obedience to the royal command they all came around the animal. Each of them touched only a certain portion of the huge body and came to the hasty conclusion that the portion he handled was really the entirety of the beast.

Those that touched the tail thought the elephant was like a broom; those that touched the leg thought it resembled a huge column; those that touched the back imagined the elephant had a body with the shape of a gigantic drum; those that handled the ear thought it reminded them of the wing of a bird; those that touched the tusk thought it had the shape of a flail. Though thus none of them could describe the complete and exact figure of the elephant, each was narrow-minded enough to insist on the verity of his testimony. The king was very much amused to see how utterly they failed to comprehend the object and how fruitless their quarreling was.

Even so, says the Buddha, is the way most of us look at the truth and quarrel over it. Buddhists may think that Buddhism is the whole truth and that all other religions are nothing but superstition and prejudice; while Christians will imagine that their religion is the only thing in the world, that they are monopolizing the divine grace, and that therefore all other teachings are impostures and idolatries and heathenisms. The adherents of Mohammedanism may also be convinced of their absolute possession of God; and so with all the other religious systems of the world. Indeed, every religion is disposed to consider that it alone and no one else holds the key to Heaven and eternal life; and on account of this conviction religionists are ever ready to denounce each other with bitterness hardly worthy of their profession and dignity. But to get at the real truth of things we must shake off all these prejudices and endeavor to comprehend the truth as a whole and be always humble and broad-minded and tolerant.

We can be set in the Way from an early age, but dogmas will fail us as we grow. In fact, it could be argued that the questioning of the Way is a sign of that growth. The Truth never changes - our perception of it does. Our choice of religion or philosophy may color our experience, but it is life itself that does the teaching. Though I have no means of proving this either way, I'm rather predisposed to the idea of reincarnation. Many lives can be utilized by a soul to dive straight into the dirty sticky ordeals of matter, while other lives are spent in quieter contemplation and dry us off a bit in the light of the One. Verily "I am a part of all that I have met..." Both types of experience are gainful, but each has its consequences just as surely as a bowling ball dropped off a second story window smacks the pavement. The more conscious one becomes of the process, the less waves one makes in the ocean of matter. And one day, the ripples will cease enough to be able to reflect the perfection of the higher worlds. And you will realize... So many of the people I work with are treading in an ocean of terribly tempestuous waves, and the King of Cups comes to quiet those waves surrounding those who have been so set adrift...