I read a short book, called “The Why Café.” Actually, I read the original in German, when the title was “Das Café am Rande der Welt.” This should have been translated as “The Café at the Edge of the World.”
In it, a diner is confronted with three question written on the back of his menu:
1. Why are you here?
2. Are you afraid of death?
3. Are you leading a fulfilled life?
As the author remarks, these are unusual questions and not found on every café’s menu.
To 1: this question refers to one’s purpose in life. Why are you here on earth? What is your mission? What is the plan for you?
To 2: as long as you have not yet found your purpose in life, you will probably fill your life with substitutes, with things that make you use up your time here on earth, but the nearer to death you come, the more you will experience a sense of desperation for not having found your purpose and for perhaps having wasted your life.
To 3: when you find your purpose in life, your higher mission, then you will lead a truly satisfied life. Without this higher purpose, this deeper meaning, your life will be hollow, and you cannot lead a truly fulfilled life. And you will not be able to contribute in a meaningful way to those around you that you love and that love you.
It pushes to the fore. It wants to understand. It wants to know more about itself. Consciousness wants to know that it feels something. Consciousness wants to recognize itself in the mirror of the mind.
Without the mind, there is no hope of ever knowing anything. The mind is the mirror where the seer can see itself in the seen.
The seer, the act of seeing, and the seen. That seems to be the whole of existence. And yet, there is more, a bit more. And that is the conscious knowing of it all. It’s the knowing. There is no knower, and nothing known. Only knowing. In a state of suspension. A state of reality, of being, of existing, of ever-fulfilling bliss.
We all have the wind of life inside of us. We all can use this wind of life to protect the life that has formed on this planet in this vast universe. The potential for life is never not in existence. It exists, because a universal life force exists that is just dying to express itself in as many forms as possible. It jubilantly bursts forth when given the opportunity and the right environment.
We humans are the highest life form on this planet and are therefore the most capable of making sure life is supported as much as it is humanly possible. Within us blows the wind of life and the same wind of life blows through the other living expressions around us.
In the practice of Reiki, we follow principles prescribed by the Meiji Emperor.
We use five principles:
> no anger
> no worries
> be appreciative
> be diligent
> be kind
> No anger means to let go of the past and not to be emotionally attached to any of the situations that you have already encountered in your life.
> No worries means to stop worrying about the future and to take your mind out of the many situations that you might encounter in your future life.
> Being appreciative means to be present to your situation at this moment and to fully accept and cherish it right now.
> Being diligent means to honor every moment and everything that you do when you experience it.
> Being kind means to be non-hurtful and supportive in a mild way in order to further all of life’s expressions.
The first two of these principles deal with letting go of the past and the future respectively.
The other three principles deal with the moment in which you live your life. They give you pointers of how to interact with people and things that you come across on your daily journey.
From the Taittiriya Upanishad:
Humans, in their ignorance, identify themselves with the material sheaths that encompass their true Selves. Transcending these, they become one with Brahman, who is pure bliss.
Comment:
The material sheath is the human body. Identification with the body is also called the ego. The ego is the notion of having had particular experiences relating to this body with its mind and senses. Living as the ego is living in a restricted way, only being concerned with the survival of this body. Ego-centric living is a miserable way of living, full of conflict and fear. It is also a never-ending fight for survival. It is a highly restrictive way of existing, where only the things that relate intimately to oneself are accepted, while everything not intimately connected will be discarded, perhaps in a highly degrading and demeaning way.
Life exists outside of the limits that we humans put on it. There are people who look, think, feel, and act differently from the way we look, think, feel, and act. As long as they are not attempting to force us to accept their way of existing as the “correct” way, we should accept their differences as the way life has evolved over time.
The essence of other people is connected to the same essence that makes us come alive. Water is used to nourish all kinds of fruit trees, whether they carry apples, oranges, or cherries. The same water quenches our thirst, the thirst of cows, and the thirst of birds.
In the same way, the essence within all people is the same. This essence, when experienced consciously, is experienced as the ultimate bliss. This essence has been given different names by different cultures, but it is still only one essence. Water is called many different names in different languages, but its essence remains the same.
“Who am I?” That is the question one has to ask oneself all the time. In every situation, there is an opportunity to define what one stands for, what one’s core principles are. One’s character gets revealed in one’s thoughts and actions. To look at the intentions behind one’s thoughts and actions is self-inquiry, self-investigation, the deep search into one’s innermost being.
Are one’s intentions towards self-protection, the protection that does not care what happens to others in the process? Or, are one’s intentions towards making other people’s lives better, helping them cope better with their lot in life?
Selfishness vs. selflessness. Self or other.
Where is the dividing line between the inner – the self, and the outer – the other? Is there even a definite demarcation? Don’t you feel some pain when you have wounded someone in some way? Don’t you feel compassion for someone, when they have come up against hardship in their life?
We are connected in some ways, maybe in more ways than we think. Are we all one, as some beliefs tell us?
Today I read something in the Koran that struck me. The words I read were “the face of God.” That struck a chord with me. I had experienced the face of god myself and I know what it means to look at the face of god. Besides looking at it, seeing it and knowing that it is the face of god, there is this almost overwhelming power “blasting” from it. It is the experience of absolute power.
So, those words in the Koran reminded me of this experience. And I thought to myself, why am I fooling around with experiences of other powers, when I had this absolute experience of the face of god? Absolute power. Raining down on me. Filling me. What else is there left in my life to find?
The ego is that which identifies itself with this body, its circumstances, its history. Liberation occurs when awareness separates itself from identification with this ego. You no longer are “this” or “that,” but there is only the awareness of different aspects of life. There is the body, but it is no longer “your” body. There are feelings, but they are no longer “your” feelings. This is not a negation of the body or the feelings. It is just a decoupling of awareness from body, mind, and feelings. There is the experience of freedom from them.
You may ask, who is experiencing this freedom? The entirety of your being is experiencing this freedom and you are constantly amazed how beautiful life truly is. You do not have a “stake” in this life anymore. You are living it, but more in the sense of stepping into a river and being carried along by it. There is love of life and there is inner stillness.
Life needs to be celebrated, constantly, jubilantly, quietly, exorbitantly, masterfully; with dignity, highest respect, always upwards towards something higher, higher ambitions, purer, more essential, to the point, honestly, truthfully, non-hurtfully, sensitively, in an open and accepting way.
The goals life wants to achieve are fulfilling on so many levels of a person’s being. Happiness resides in these achievable goals. There is constant, uninterrupted striving towards these goals at every stage of one’s life.
The driving force behind these goals is curiosity about how things are and what they could be. What are the possibilities one an uncover? How many creations can one produce? How many paintings, novels, songs, etc. can flow from a person’s creative impulses?
These four goals are generally listed in order in which they appear on a Vedic Astrological Chart: Dharma – Artha – Kama – Moksha: Law – Wealth – Pleasure – Liberation.
Dharma is a kind of driving force behind a person’s individual choices and actions. These are the core drives, e.g., what environment one feels most comfortable in, what people one surround oneself with, the basic thoughts that go through one’s mind.
Artha is the material resources we need to exist in this life. How well do we live? How much material comfort do we surround ourselves with?
Kama is the enjoyment we experience while on this earth. What are the pleasures we enjoy and who do we enjoy them with?
Moksha is the end of things, the endings of our undertakings. How well are we able to renounce our attachments to the things we strove towards with our Dharma, that we accumulated through Artha, and that we enjoyed through Kama, because, ultimately, all our undertakings bring about an evolution in spirit, which exists beyond material things.
There is love for life, all of it, with its ups and downs, valleys and peaks, triumphs and defeats, successes and failures, tragedies and happy endings, highs and lows, and everything in between.
There is the celebration of life, with its heartbreaks and reunifications, empowerments and enslavements, material successes and spiritual enlightenments.
