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What kind of place is this my friends?
The sun rises only to set. We are born only to depart one day. Fortunes, generations, entire cultures, even life itself comes and goes. Is there anything that stays behind?
33 give their lives to unmask the anger of one boy. The boy becomes a man. His life, arising only to pass. Only to take away. Anger remains.
Tears flow through the country. Making us feel. Something within us comes alive. It gives rise to a new reality, a new compassion takes form. Our hearts race, reach out, and sometimes, tears actually leak from our eyes. In our despair we actually begin to feel what it is to be human.
What kind of a place is this?
Tragedies come and go, lives lost forever, yet the rest of us still find ground beneath our feet. One way or another, life moves on. The sun rises again.
Two teenagers pull guns out of duffel bags and destroy entire livelihoods. That was 1999. Twin Towers explode. A tidal wave consumes entire cities. A hurricane touches down to teach us that we are not invincible. And yet, here we are, invincible. A war destroys an entire country, mothers cry out. Leaders, steadfast in their charge, say that lives are not lost in vain, yet we do it again… and again, and again. That was Vietnam.
What kind of a place is this?
The sun sets. Sends us into darkness, only to beckon us again with the chirping of birds. It gives us rise only to set us down again. A pattern emerges. Light and Dark, joy and pain, exhilaration and disappointment, Love and sacrifice all tied together.
We chastise those who grasp at more than is needed, secretly wishing that our own reach was vaster than theirs. Lovers betray one another. The secrets that we harbor in our minds would betray everyone we know.
We send our children, our own flesh and blood, to teachers whose salaries we would never accept for ourselves.
What kind of people are we?
What kind of a person am I?
Trapped between trying to build a new life and submitting to my past’s patterns. Childhood memories still shape the decisions of my life. Unable to control all of my thoughts I see the direction of my life shaping itself. Was my destiny shaped with my birth?
Seeing suffering everywhere and still I am consumed by my own discomforts. I still find it necessary to smile, to laugh, and to enjoy despite all the chaos that intrudes this planet. I celebrate birthdays, promotions, and even unexpected (and unwarranted) moments of joy, despite not knowing what this entire experience is all about.
A soldier asks why 3000 lives weren’t honored like the 33. An Iraqi woman asks the same about 100,000. And me, I’m just trapped thinking about why someone lied to me.
But it does all arise to pass. And in doing so, hopefully there is hope, that it teaches us something. That it refines us somehow, makes us better at who we are, and at what we are supposed to be doing in this diminishing existence. Time passes by, we get older, nearer to the days when we can no longer remember. The moment is now. To rise up, embrace the sun, the warmth, the birds, and the calling for a new day. The sun sets, only to call for us again the next morning.
This is a time of awakening and creating our own reality, so embrace the sun, the warmth, the birds and a new day with joy.
Be the joy this world desperately needs, and smile knowing we are eternal……….
This world is a beautiful place. Life is good!!
beautiful….and honest. The more we expand our perspective, the more we open ourselves to the world. light, dark, all that is.
you are the cause in great transformation..by your words and your intention that you send out from your heart. it is felt by many and the ripples of your work in the world do make a difference.
thank you
is there such a thing as light and dark ? whats there to life ? whats good and whats bad ?
these are ideas that arise out of an unique gift to our specie – conscience. at the most fundamental level, all of our definitions are guided by the selfishness of our specie. Good to us is whats good for our kind. whatever is detrimental to humankind is toxic, evil, bad, sick and negative.
millions of different life forms came and went without fussing over any of these issues… and we kill and grill ourselves endlessly trying to resolve these. We strive for balances in the hope that it’d make us feel good… that it’d somehow embetter our survival… that somehow it’d keep us away from the pain, just one of the different feelings which has become the bottomline reason behind our efforts. We are constantly trying to get away from it, each in our own ways; and in the process we often make it more painful for others.
Why can’t we embrace pain ? what is this unique wiring by the nature that keeps every living entity constantly running away from pain ? would we ever be able to eliminate it completely ? whats the point in hoping ?
we don’t have answers and we would never have any. we are more miserable because we think more. We can philosophize and hence we are going down. we are putting too much effort it seems… maybe if every hoping mind goes numb things would be little easier. The misery is not in suffering physically; it lies in suffering from the endless analysis of the suffering.
What kind of place is this? What is this place we call reality? Is there suffering? I thought everyone just lived there supposed existence without any problems or fears. Isn’t that what it looks like, what your neighbors would have you believe?
I never knew what suffering was until I became “awareâ€. This happened in an instant, a moment, a time when I least expected it. Then I was numb. Afterwards I felt I was drifting, in between two worlds, in a dimension void of reality, as everyone around me seemed to experience.
I never really thought of awareness of the world, other people’s lives, the whole nations in this whole world that we occupy for awhile anyways, during this time…on Earth.
Did I make a mistake? A mistake in believing the reality that only I was living in?
I believe we need to feel the pain. Why? If nothing else, then we must feel pain to keep us living in the present. To wake us up. To keep us from letting years of our lives drift away. To begin again with a purpose.
What kind of place is this? Are we a reflection of our feelings? Collaterally, are the feelings of the people on Earth a product of its relationship to each other? Are pain and love a driving force?
Sometimes I question why others, and I are still motivated. Why do I continue on, to learn, explore new things, make new goals, and do so, to better my life? Why better my life, for the sake of bettering the Earth, others, and the children that have needs, needs that will almost always never be met?
I offer, when is it that compassion, awareness, and realness happened upon you? What kind of place is this where so many people don’t even know that they have been touched already? Touched by what something or someone else has done half a world away…connected in every way.
Thank you for reminding me. I am so glad we are connected to each other. If everyone knew that, maybe we would all work together. And although we may not be able to fix all the problems, but with inspiration from awareness, we may at the very least, throw our collective energy in a positive direction.
Powerful reflections.
And many, many questions, which by definition, are important.
Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”
A wonderful article by Juanita Brown et al., called “The Art of Powerful Questions” explores this further:
http://www.theworldcafe.com/articles/aopq.pdf
peace
v
http://www.theworldcafe.com/articles/aopq.pdf
“Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”
Joseph Campbell
Quiet the mind and let your heart shine with joy……
Your beautiful words seem to sum up the ephemeral nature of life…. the highs, the lows; the ups, the downs; the falling & rising up.
Acceptance of suffering into one’s life seems doable once there’s an awareness to the seasonal nature of our journey – that nothing remains the same. We are constantly moving, rising up, tearing down, breathing, pacing, balancing, etc.
Thank you so much.
Sukh, Thank you for your strength in facing days…beautiful days, but sometimes “unwarranted” disappointing or basically tough days. Your meditation, love for humanity and this planet will always lift you up. And what I’ve witnessed in you…lifts many up as well. I concur: “What kind of world is this?” How is it possible that these events happen and in the same second, a baby is being born, a wedding celebration is happening, smiles light up a whole room and beyond? What feels unanswerable is only solved at times by a crying out…a releasing of feelings, a shoulder to cry on, a smile to give, a trip to a kick boxing class…to release anger in a healthy way.
Thank you for what you wrote here:
“The moment is now. To rise up, embrace the sun, the warmth, the birds, and the calling for a new day. The sun sets, only to call for us again the next morning.”
It seems as if…well if we could all…as a planet..do what you suggest here…I don’t know if the same tragic circumstances would be a part of reality as we know it.
love will win:)