If there is one thing the pandemic with its lockdowns and social (life) barriers has taught us, at the very least it is that:
1) we humans basically have very limited control,
2) if my life is to have a purpose, what do I need to add/subtract from it?
Or am I here just to travel to as many places as possible, eat every imaginable form/type of food, be with as many partners as humanly possible, or _________? Fill in your own blanks.
Eat, drink, and be merry! — the Epicurean mantra doesn’t end there. It continues: tomorrow we die!
If you plan to live longer than tomorrow…
In the past year and a half, perhaps many more have died than ever before in history. For those of us who are living, our choices include 1–what life lessons can I learn from the suffering of others? 2–Must pain and suffering visit me to teach me the lesson that caring and humility and appreciation for the plight of others might be a lesson?
It is almost a foregone conclusion that these are the times when our souls are tested.
Will we pass the test or will we fall (stay) into the intense pain of “insane” behavior patterns that push us from emergency to emergency, from light to dark, from God to something far less?
Not only are the choices ours—whether we like it or not—but they are inexorable, meaning they stay with us until the lessons are learned.
If I were truly dedicated to slaying my demons, I would persist until I buried them. The reward is eternal peace, prosperity, and purpose—or at least some semblance of happiness here and now.
Those are not easy concepts to understand.
understand since many of us experience such conditions very rarely. That is where FAITH comes in.
“Faith is believing in what we do not see. “The reward is seeing what we believe,” wrote St. Augustine.
The punishment, or shall we say the downside, of bad choices is continued imprisonment in the cages of self-deception, self-sabotage, and a lack of self-satisfaction and altruism. Think about it. Dream not of sandy beaches, but of fulfilling your true purpose for being here, taking advantage of the opportunities that the miracle of your birth has granted you.
Failure to do this perpetuates our hamster-like journey on the wheel of life, expecting different outcomes from the same behaviors (a central tenet of the worlds of addictive and mentally disturbed behavior).
Or are hamsters just getting exercise? Pondering this is Swadhyaya. Dismissing or ignoring this is like chewing gum—perhaps a good jaw exercise, but too little for our minds or hearts to sink their teeth into—(if our minds and hearts had teeth, that is).
Chew on that for a while, while your teeth are still yours.
