It's been cold here in Wisconsin, and it gets dark early. At 5:00 I did the grocery shopping amid the normal swirl of tired people just off from work, and then I steered towards home along the frozen river, the road showing as a strip of white from the dried salt and newly fallen snow. At below zero, the still-falling snow gleamed in the headlights as frozen sparkles, reflecting the light so that I drove as if through a shining tunnel in ink blackness, a beautiful sight from the warm comfort of the car. In a moment, the radio music seemed a distraction and I turned it off to enjoy the solitude. My turn came up, but it was too soon; I headed down to check the lake, to see if the snowmobiles were using it, and the headlights showed that they were. Then I took a left, away from home, to drive further in the snow, the feeling too nice to let go. This was my fall bike-route, which I knew well at slow speeds, but now, in the dark and snow, I felt lost, going almost by instincts alone, bolstered here and there by a recognition of a barn, or a curve. Slow, quiet driving in the snow, in the lighted tunnel through darkness. Lost in a way, my head emptied, it came to me - not a revelation, really, but a thought beyond my current thoughts about why, why we are here in this "world of pain" as Michael Harner has called it.
Yes, I realized, only a genius could have conceived this reality; for in a universe (and beyond) of total unity from one source, the genius has made a place and a people of ignorance. As all things are connected from this one source, how could it be? But it is - and it is not the dead, those who drink from the river Lethe, who have forgotten, but us, and by design. We have been made to forget so that we could realize what was forgotten. We have been made ignorant to bring to the universe the joy and marvel of realization. How could the One Of All conceive of such a thing? Genius - and it makes it fascinating - if not for The One, then for us, but we are part of The One, so "it" too knows the wonder of itself, of being.
We pay a high price - it is, indeed, the world of suffering and pain, and it can be no other way: pain makes it real and ignorance brings fear, and both must be if we believe ourselves separate from The One. In part, we suffer; in union, we do not. There is a carrot and a stick here, if we could see them, but it is more than that; it is the joy of union from separation that is the goal.
It may not be any comfort to those who are suffering - and we all are one of those sooner or later - but all suffering will end when the journey of discovery is over, for there never was any separation and, with that, there never was any time. "I AM WHO AM," it is said, and life will be less than a dream at the end - an end that never was, as there was no beginning. It is all confusing from our perspective, but it also makes sense. We, our very beings, are the essence of the joy of discovery - and joy is found in each discovery until the final joy. It will be worth it, we shall see, for such genius cannot be wrong.
It all brings to mind the 'Next Generation' Star Trek series that features Q, a race of incredible beings who can, as the individual Q often does, change the laws of physics at a whim. This Q is a renegade from his race, and behind his irascibility is an understanding and a jealousy which he reveals in one episode - that humans were meant for a higher status than even the Q. I have often wondered what the writers of the series meant - how can we reach higher than such nearly all-powerful beings? Well, this is it - we are led from discovery to discover the Big One - that is our destiny, whether in time or without. Some how, some way, that is us. From such small acorns tall oak trees grow!
And from such little drives come such ideas. Maybe little, maybe not so original, but a discovery to this one inhabitant in this world of separation and pain. FK
Yes, I realized, only a genius could have conceived this reality; for in a universe (and beyond) of total unity from one source, the genius has made a place and a people of ignorance. As all things are connected from this one source, how could it be? But it is - and it is not the dead, those who drink from the river Lethe, who have forgotten, but us, and by design. We have been made to forget so that we could realize what was forgotten. We have been made ignorant to bring to the universe the joy and marvel of realization. How could the One Of All conceive of such a thing? Genius - and it makes it fascinating - if not for The One, then for us, but we are part of The One, so "it" too knows the wonder of itself, of being.
We pay a high price - it is, indeed, the world of suffering and pain, and it can be no other way: pain makes it real and ignorance brings fear, and both must be if we believe ourselves separate from The One. In part, we suffer; in union, we do not. There is a carrot and a stick here, if we could see them, but it is more than that; it is the joy of union from separation that is the goal.
It may not be any comfort to those who are suffering - and we all are one of those sooner or later - but all suffering will end when the journey of discovery is over, for there never was any separation and, with that, there never was any time. "I AM WHO AM," it is said, and life will be less than a dream at the end - an end that never was, as there was no beginning. It is all confusing from our perspective, but it also makes sense. We, our very beings, are the essence of the joy of discovery - and joy is found in each discovery until the final joy. It will be worth it, we shall see, for such genius cannot be wrong.
It all brings to mind the 'Next Generation' Star Trek series that features Q, a race of incredible beings who can, as the individual Q often does, change the laws of physics at a whim. This Q is a renegade from his race, and behind his irascibility is an understanding and a jealousy which he reveals in one episode - that humans were meant for a higher status than even the Q. I have often wondered what the writers of the series meant - how can we reach higher than such nearly all-powerful beings? Well, this is it - we are led from discovery to discover the Big One - that is our destiny, whether in time or without. Some how, some way, that is us. From such small acorns tall oak trees grow!
And from such little drives come such ideas. Maybe little, maybe not so original, but a discovery to this one inhabitant in this world of separation and pain. FK
RSS Feed