December 2015
“I don’t know what I’m missing…why the hell! Why shouldn’t I know?! Is there anything worse?? If only I knew and it was hard to find…but if I knew… What will happen to my aching soul now?” ? My head is going to explode! If only I could shut it down…not think for a while. I wish I could…
I want to live. To live for everyone! May I live them all! To make them all live.
It hurts that I can’t do it…I cry, inside…out…it doesn’t matter, right?
I want everything! It’s correct; To want the wind on my face, the sunlight, the eerie sea, the cold of winter, the feeling of tiredness after running…
Love, affection, romance, you and the other…art…my art! I love her. I want dance, theater, music! Mine. For others, to be theirs. To be ours!
I want the mountains, the rivers, the pastures, the plains, the earth and the stars! I want to fly with my heart, with my mind…to touch “it’s mine”. Mine and others’. What unites us…everything.
I want to help. I want to love. I don’t want much…just the caress, the hug, the smile. The hawk to circle above me flying. It’s enough for me to have a beautiful dusk… It’s enough for me to know that the blue butterfly outside on the windowsill will have a beautiful day today…and let it die…a beautiful life…I love it. I love clouds when they are pink. I love the water that drowns me… I love…the one who hurt me and taught me.
[…]
It hasn’t been long since I came to the conclusion that everything works for me and I can’t get enough of anything! My fear? Don’t leave and I don’t have time to do everything. I ache under the weight of the things I want to do. And if I can’t do any of these things…? Someone tell me what to do!
[…]
And when they ask you what’s the worst game you’ve ever played…don’t rush…”LIFE!” tell them!!!
And when they ask you what’s the best joke you’ve heard…again “life” tell them what it is…our favorite lie. The greatest truth we have ever experienced.”
The above excerpt is from the digital diary of a girl named Angelina. Now that girl doesn’t exist. And if you look for her, you won’t find her. Angelina is a girl who has died several times in her past. In her place, a new person is born quite often, she always comes out innocent (that’s what the others call her, she herself doesn’t understand)… I had forgotten about these notes, but a few days ago something led me to look at them again. And I feel like I want to share some things I have inside, maybe some people will find them interesting or even helpful. If they still seem useless to you, throw them in the corresponding bin.
I’ve always heard people say “Have experiences! As many as you can!” or “People are their experiences” or “Try this, that, the other…” and other similar expressions. But I wonder if people understand what this phrase means or why they say it. What comes to my mind is that people think they have been given a sack and the purpose of life is to fill it with stuff. The more and more crazy they can be, the better. To leave full… And is this the meaning of life? Or that they will have a happy and peaceful life anyway? Something is wrong with me…
Indeed, experiences are a beautiful thing. It’s nice through different situations to discover things about the world and maybe discover something about yourself. It feels great to be old and feel like life didn’t pass you by without seeing enough, that you won’t leave complaining that you didn’t experience enough. But I have my doubts that there is any substance to it. The real peace, the bliss. If this is an insatiable desire for things, then you will take it with you after this life. I feel like most people have gone into a hunt for experiences, it’s more like a hunt for happiness.
The truth is, whether you pursue it or not, life is an experience in itself. The most fantastic experience you will live! And you are not spared, it will bring joy, sorrow, loves, friends, enemies, health, sickness, separations and death (another great experience, which most of us do not know how to experience). How many of us really enjoy death…? And I’m telling you again, you can’t save it, it will bring a lot of things!
And even that you live, that you exist, that you wake up and drink tea or coffee with that wonderful, characteristic aroma, that you breathe, that you see the sunlight, the mountains, the sea, other people’s eyes… the touch of your loved one’s hand, hearing a good piece of music, laughing, crying (especially this one)… these are great experiences that most people have not discovered, take for granted . The awe, the excitement is gone! People seem to have forgotten that these in themselves are gifts. They do not see it because there is too much dust added to their eyes and they cannot see clearly. To protect themselves from pain, people wear armor, so that the bad things don’t touch them (separation, something that makes them angry, something that scares them), but that way they don’t even get through the beautiful things (the babbling brook, the laughter of a child, the caress of their partner). Where did people’s sensitivity go? If only they would find the courage to throw away the armor!
It’s about whether you really know how to live. I mean if there is quality in what you live, if you live it consciously, with the understanding that “My God I really live! And that’s enough.” Quality not quantity. This is of course an existential question and I apologize if I have already tired some of them. But I will continue.
What I have understood so far in life, which meditation has helped me a lot, is that ultimately man does not have a sack to fill with a cartload of stuff. He is the sack himself. And no one cares about the sack, everyone cares about what’s in it! No one cares to see how big the sack is, what material it is made of, is it soft, hard, how many dimensions does it extend, the three known or more, does it have any holes or patches? What is this sack anyway?! Where did it sprout from?!
Man is not the rain, the sunshine or the clouds. Man is the sky. And whatever the weather is today, the best thing to do is to enjoy it. Enjoy it while it lasts. But never forget that this is heaven. He is infinite.
If today he has sadness to enjoy sadness, if he has happiness to be able to enjoy happiness, consciously. Many are not able to enjoy this with awareness either.
Man is not his experiences. He is the one who has the experiences. So shall we begin to deal with its essence, the material of which it is made?
I think the issue comes in when things become an end in themselves. And this can happen in love too. That is, when you set love as your life goal. I recently realized that I did and it was a big shock to me! I mean, okay, who doesn’t want to love and be loved?? But ultimately whether you aim for love, or to earn a lot of money, or to gain prestige is the same thing. The spiritual teachers, of course, say that what we have inside us is “longing” for love and not “desire”. It has a different quality. It is from the heart and not from the mind. But what can I say… When the desires are of the mind, of the wicked, life has a lot of pain and it seems like an agonizing vicious circle from which you never escape. And it would be a great relief if these desires stopped suffocating us and paining us at the thought of not living them.
And in panic the man asks: “Am I going to leave without having tried this and that and the other?!” So what; That doesn’t matter, what matters is that whatever comes you know how to live it. You know; Do you master the art of living? Not chasing life, but recognizing that you already have it? Not to chase love, but to recognize that you already have it hidden within you, at the core of your being?
Hmm so I don’t know what else to say. Maybe all of this doesn’t even matter… It’s just some thoughts and some realizations. The desires of the mind are a difficult part, a great suffering… but it is everyone’s choice… There are also the desires of life, where does she want you, there are the desires of the heart and I confess that from now on the thoughts are not coherent my, so i’ll stop…
Maybe I just wanted to remind you this: right now you are somewhere, whether you are sitting in a chair or on the couch, maybe you are on a bus, maybe you are lying in bed, it doesn’t matter, just leave all the goals and the desires of the mind. Do it now, try it! Close your eyes and smile. Let the silence or the commotion around you enter you. Be a watcher! And when you get up from where you are sitting, you observe yourself in space. Enjoy your existence. Take time to realize that you are truly alive! That’s reason enough to celebrate. You don’t have to go anywhere or worry about the future. You just have to know how to live in the moment and a fragrance will emerge… Life is not somewhere else or tomorrow.
Life is here, now.