Aspects of Being
This is going to be a bit of a rant. Because, well, sometimes you just have to… Perhaps it’s because for some time I’ve been wrestling with things in my life, which is, by actuarial standards about half over. Having looked at things backwards, forwards, and inside out, and still not seen it all, I however beg to differ here with the notion of attracting all our circumstances - that when you “give out positive energy you will attract positive energy”, and vice versa. I’m not speaking about lifetime karma. For some time I’ve been asking how we in fact define the ‘positive’ as opposed to the ‘negative’… Now, I’m not saying that we don’t gather certain forces around us at certain times, that they’re not within us, nor that we’re not in fact perpetually surrounded by them, but that we will obviously never fully comprehend them. Here is where definitions vary. We like to have our Universal Laws at the ready. Yet if this - ‘Attraction’ - is a universal law, does a 6 month old attract repeated abuse that changes the course of its young life, bringing it to an early ruin? Does a Pacifist prisoner being held by a fascist regime attract being tortured? Is it the torturer that has ”attracted” his own moral demise or was he taken at a young age and fully indoctrinated without choice? Have women attracted men’s pervasive and insatiable need for control, dismissing the deep wisdom of the ‘fairer sex’? For that matter - do we attract Old Age and infirmity? If we listen to a “guru” claiming you can think “positive” enough to attract wealth (why wealth instead of Sustainability??) - doesn’t that wealth, in this realm, often come at the expense of another’s labour as well as the Environment? I recently read a book that stated if we could all gather up our ‘collective forces’, the power of prayer could eliminate all our woes, could in fact stop Earthquakes, Floods and Tornados. Neat. So - have Homo Sapiens in fact ‘attracted’ the natural shifts of the Earth and its weather patterns, which we are ever only beginning to understand? Or is it simply “the way of things”, beyond our comprehension but to look for a far deeper relevance, other than our immediate comfort and security or lack thereof. Ought we endeavour to prohibit the movement of the tectonic plates?! I’m not dismissing the awakening of Higher Awareness, but our collective perception of it… The Hindu faith embraces
the notion that we return again and again to encounter and master further
spiritual lessons. This I can believe, as well as that the Human Spirit
knows no bounds in grappling with and mastering (usually in increments)
the challenges we encounter in our journeys, as individuals or as a race.
Still, there are often times of defeat. Yet from defeat can rise the proverbial
Phoenix, and lessons learned, or rather knowledge found in the deepest
parts of ourselves can bring an understanding that would not have been
available in a previous mindset. Still, the Phoenix does not always rise
in this lifetime. Isn’t this like a forest fire that scorches the earth,
yet provides the opportunity for new, more vibrant and diverse growth,
even if it takes time? And yes, I do in fact believe in the power of prayer
- that is, the practice of reaching out (or inwards) to those forces we
trust surround us, and that we are part of. We do indeed emit and ‘create’
incalculable albeit hitherto ‘unseen’ amounts of energy, as we are ever
finding out through further study. Still, it is often in these glimpses
that we return to our folly - that our perceptions are an epitome of understanding
as we often forgo any objective other than the fulfillment of our immediate
perceived needs. We neither revere our past exercises, nor contemplate
the repercussions for the future. The Big Picture is still lost to us.
Perhaps this is why tribulations plague us - or are they tribulations?
Yin Yang - no Death, no Life. No Universal Big Bang - no Us! All is one.
What we see is NOT all that is! And perhaps we need to smile at ourselves
more often, knowing we are ever only beginning, and that we all hold but
a piece of the Infinite Puzzle…
Eleven Religious Views of Life* |