There is only the inner Journey

To be thankful for being alive is the highest form of worship. Simply to be thankful to be alive and to know it. To appreciate every moment fully. To savor it. And to extend this feeling of gratitude into every action. The honor to be able to sit here and type these words. The incredible fact that I am reading these words on the computer monitor. This feedback loop of action and consequence, of cause and effect is most astonishing.

In this feedback loop lies the miracle of consciousness. To do something and then to know that it exists outside of me. I can think about a lot of things, but only through taking actions can I see these thoughts materialize. That is the miracle of creation. And the miracle of knowing about it. The knowing takes place inside of me. Not outside. Creation exists outside, awareness inside.

Yes, a tree exists in the forest without me knowing about it, but it has no consequence to me. It does not influence my thinking, my awareness, my consciousness. Correction, just now it did as a generic tree in a generic forest.

Whatever I can think of, that becomes a reality for me. My thoughts and feelings create my world. Some say, I dream the world into existence. That may be true, but it all starts with me. Without me existing, there would be no world to experience. Would there be a world at all? I don’t know. Certainly not the world that I am experiencing. Probably some other world.

And so it goes on, round and round. It all orbits around me. I am the center of my universe. But I am not the creator of me. And I am not the creator of the universe. I may dream it into being in a particular shape, but its substance I did not create, and I don’t know what that substance is.

Well, I think I know. It is energy with particles. Tiny particles that have tiny electric charges. Some particles attract, others repulse. Over time friction arises which leads to the Big Bang. I don’t know why scientists have not come up with a better name for it. Big bang implies that there was something to hear. I doubt that, because the universe created its own space when it exploded and without space there is no sound as we know it.

Anyway, I shifted my thinking mind away from feeling grateful. I could think forever about the state of the universe and will end up right where I left off: in the knowing that I exist, which makes me ecstatically happy, or as it is so aptly put by the Vedic sages: the Self is Sat-Chit-Ananda, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. What more can be said?