Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Everything seems to be growing and expanding, constantly. It seems like if you’re not succeeding, you’re not living. If you’re not excelling, you’re not doing what you should be doing. If you’re not always climbing towards the mountain peak, you’re dying. No-one is in a constant rainstorm no more than no-one is in a perpetual drought. No-one is soaking in the best of the best, without the worst peaking through from time to time. No-one is joyriding without the bumps and strains of a breakdown. No one’s plate is full, although it appears that way. There are empty plates on the table.
Constancy and perpetuity in one direction is a coverup of truth. We like to paint a picture of success without acknowledging the importance of struggle and failure, which makes it possible. We love sunsets, mountains, abundance, and blessings. Must we paint such a one-sided lie?
To know you are “here,” you have to be taken “there.” To know self, you have to know other. To be in the dumps, you have to know the peaks. To feel different you must know sameness. To know fullness you have to empty yourself. To know the valley you have to have gone to the heights. Sorrow doesn’t come without joy. Expansion doesn’t come without contraction. If you’re at the bottom, good – you’ve peaked and it’s time to go back up. If you’re on the top, get ready to fall. You can’t stay at the buffet in the constant feeding frenzy of social media, glitz, and consumption. The depth of life, the path to the divine is a zigzag. To know outer you must know inner. To know, you must have a sense of not knowing. To love you must have a sense of being unloved. To know that you are “only human,” means that you are aware of the mystery of the One Omniscience within.