No Beginning and No End
I have been living most of my life in the fast lane. Running until I have nothing left to give. I get a lot of shit done but what’s the point?
Over the last year I have been trying to grow as a person. Asking questions and exploring the deeper why. Trying to come to a greater understanding of myself and life’s purpose.
Why are we born? Why do we die? What’s the point of it all?
We can’t see the truth if we keep thinking about it. That’s the first thing I learned. Thinking is living within the boundaries of what we have been taught.
I have to let go of thinking. Do not prolong the suffering. Change perspective. The truth is in there.
However we live in a horizontal timeline where forward progress rules. It’s like being on a train that keeps moving down the tracks. If you missed your station to bad, keep going.
You can’t turn around. Can’t get off. Not even sure where we are headed most of the time. What’s the next stop?
We have a start (birth), and will have an end (death). These are our boundaries.
Between the start and end we do lots of shit. We keep looking to the past for how things used to be and look to the future for how things might be.
We label things good or bad. We suffer and we cry about it. It’s how we learn. To grow we must suffer through life’s perceived problems and set backs. It influences our choices and makes for a better tomorrow. (If we make better choices).
This makes perfect sense in our world of form. My thinking mind can comprehend all of this. But my spiritual awareness is still not done asking questions.
So I stop thinking for a little while. I am aware there is no end to life. We are not our bodies. We are deeper than that. Life is endless, timeless, formless.
Life cannot die. It only changes.
So if life is what sustains us. And we are not our bodies. Does death really exist? Or is it not just another misunderstood word to describe a transition?
Not the end but the beginning of a new experience?
In order to embrace this we must shift our attention from looking at life as a series of events in the past and future (horizontal). We have to become aware of the present moment (vertical).
Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is Life itself, it is an insane way to live. — Eckart Tolle
Life is not a series of events, it is only the present moment.
In this vertical timeline there is no yesterday or tomorrow. Only right now.
No need for worry, anxiety, hesitation, regret, expectations. This is just the way things are. Not good or bad. Just the truth.
At this moment, everything is okay. It does not matter what is going on around you.
Your bills don’t matter. Your email can wait. The fight you had with your boss was pointless. (Although you might want to spiff up you LinkedIn profile).
Nothing really matters. Not in the way we think it does. We are not meant to achieve anything in this world other than our own growth and the growth of others.
In opening into the vertical dimension, which has no limit, the present is never confining or fraught with problems. Problems need time, that is to say past and future, to survive. — Eckart Tolle
We get to share in each other’s love and experiences. As well as some real cool other shit along the way. Roller coasters. Pizza. Sunsets. Zombie movies.
Is that not enough? Sounds pretty awesome to me.
When death does come knocking who says that it’s actually the end? It’s just another change. From form to formless. Some cultures even say we return to this earth to keep trying again. Over and over until we see. Not with only our eyes but with our being.
All the stuff that happened yesterday and all the stuff that will happen tomorrow is pretty noisy. I know it can grab your attention. If you let it.
Now I’m not suggesting that there is no such thing as time. But there is not minutes, days, weeks, years. There is only changes to the present moment. You can label it however you want.
The right now is all we ever have. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Pretty amazing if you stop and don’t think about it.
