The second part of three of Shanti’s essay: How long is that road from the man we are to the man we can be, from our present state to our potential as a human being and as mankind?
How long is that road …
from taking ‘being alive’ for granted or even begging for more, having a desiring mind, a beggar’s mind …
to being thankful for what existence is offering us as a gift, practising thankfulness as our only authentic prayer?
from being perfectionists …
to understanding that perfectionism goes on denying all that is human, that perfectionism is a kind of inhuman ideal?
from wanting things to be different and pushing existence …
to being in a let-go, flowing with the river of life, moving with the wind, saying ‘yes’ to whatever is happening in our life, enjoying all climates, all moods of nature, trusting that ‘God’ knows what he is doing, knowing that everything happens in its own time, that there is a season for everything and a time for every purpose under heaven?
from being afraid of or even fighting death …
to being aware that this world is only a caravanserai, accepting our own death peacefully, as a loving entry into the unknown, a joyful goodbye to old friends, to the old world, without any tragedy in it?
from being possessive about things …
to being aware that nothing belongs to us, so there is nothing to renounce?
from being arrogant and pretending to know …
to being humble and asking out of our ignorance, always ready to learn, being a receiver, learning from the trees and the spring and the clouds and the winds, knowing only one thing, that we don’t know, allowing the whole existence to become a teacher to us?
from swinging back and forth between love and hate, between indulging too much and renouncing too much and between being in the world and escaping out of it …
to remaining in the middle, following the middle path, understanding that only fools are at the extremes?
from being part of the mob and behaving like sheep, allowing anyone to lead us astray, away from our nature, away from our individuality, away from our being …
to living our freedom, walking on the edge of a razor, every moment in danger, knowing that we can’t please everyone, because if we try, we lose ourselves?
from living our life as a problem to be solved …
to living it as a mystery to be lived, a life that can be sung, a life that can be danced, a life that can be loved, as a life enough unto itself?
from taking our life too seriously …
to taking it more playfully, as if we are children, playing by the sea beach, collecting seashells, coloured stones, making houses of sand: nothing to be serious about?
from asking for a meaning of life …
to just enjoying the mysteriousness of existence?
from holding on and clinging to our mind …
to considering our mind as one of the most beautiful, the most complex, the most evolved mechanisms, knowing our mind as a beautiful servant, but as a dangerous master; able to drop our mind at any moment, aware that our mind – being just a mechanism – cannot hold us?
from being worried and concerned about our lives …
to trusting existence without being passive, understanding that existence has no hands other than our hands; doing whatsoever we can and then, whatsoever happens, accepting it?
from dividing the world and the divine, the material and the spiritual plane …
to dropping these old dichotomies, seeing only one reality: matter being the visible form and spirit the invisible form; a holistic approach where everything is sacred – taking a cup of tea, massaging our mother’s feet or taking care of this beautiful planet – making our ordinary life a thing of beauty and art, living like the lotus flower lives in water, but the water touches it not, living in the world but remaining untouched by it?
from comparing people, considering someone as superior or inferior …
to seeing humans are different, certainly, but not as unequal; understanding that everyone and everything is unique, that each thing exists in its own way, has its own soul, that a leaf of grass is no less than the journey of a star?
from worrying about the past, worrying about the future and worrying about death …
to living in the present, enjoying this moment, dropping the past, remaining unburdened and – knowing that tomorrow never comes – dropping the habit of promising?
from separating science into science approaching the outside reality and science approaching the interior reality …
to being complete and entire, a scientist and a mystic both, acquainted with the outside world and acquainted with the inside world as well, with the mind and the mystery, with the body and the being?
to be continued …
Link to previous posting
Part 1
Shanti is a regular contributor
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