Who am I? Is this my reality? These are questions that have been permeating my mind of late. With the recent passing of our unborn son I keep trying to latch onto the idea that there is some higher, more enlightened state of mind, some sort of ultimate reality. While watching the movie Gladiator starring Russel Crowe I kept hearing this idea of another life, a world after our own. It is a prevalent idea in many of the world religions. Karma, afterlife, heaven, 1000 some odd virgins to cater to your every needs; all of these are some how represented in the worlds religions as possible worlds beyond our own. Part me wants to believe so badly that it hurts. I want to think that James is somehow waiting for us to come see him, part of me wants to be assured that I will have a time to get to know him. But another part of me simply knows that he is no more, that we will all be no more when our last day finally ticks away.
So I ask again who am I? Is this reality? And what is it all for? Some Buddhist priests think that we must not cling to anyone thing or place any one person, place or thing above another. To give more meaning to one ants life over that of a mosquito is to throw life off kilter. To place James above any other person in my life is to throw my life out of balance. All things should be held in balance no one item given undue attention, emphasis, or ranking in life. The life of a stranger has the same importance as the life of my wife, daughters, sons (born and unborn). This is a hard road to go down, a difficult rocky road and yet a road that holds fascination for me. It seems to be accurate, and fair in a balanced poignant way.
In a way this idea is supported in modern ‘self-help’ ideals through books like Stephen Covey’s ‘7 Habits for Highly Effective People’ in which no one thing should be the focus of our center. If family, wife, enemy, money or self is at the center of your world you lose balance in life. If the natural laws of the world are at your center life is more balanced. These natural laws, or principals, are unmoving, unchanging, uncaring and they will not fight with you or divorce you or talk back to you. They simply exist and…are what they are.
So what are these principles? What is my reality? Do these principles make up my reality? Will they guide me towards some inwards looking enlightenment that solves all of my problems? Will I live long enough to understand these principals and by the time I understand them will I be young enough to actually do anything with them? If I live by these principals will I be able to…in the end see James or will I, like everyone else in this world, end up as so much dust drifting on the winds of change through the annals of time never to settle?
I do not write these things to morbid or to some how gain pity from the readers of these words. I ask these questions because I am truly interested in the questions answers. It is no odd thing for those who know me to understand that I find a lack of comfort in the ideas espoused by the Judeo-Christian world and so I seek some enlightenment from alternative places. Do the answers lie, as Dr. Covey suggests, in the principals of the world? I think that to some extent they do. Understanding who I am and where my center lies may lead ultimately to a higher understanding of what my reality really is. The questions, however, of where we go…what we do…and who we do it with in the afterlife will be answers I suppose I’ll share with the rest of you when we get to the other side….and hopefully that will be a long long time from now! ;-) In the end I suppose we must find our balance….seek our center and choose to proactively find our happiness in the Now for as long as our Now continues to exist.
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