light – Owning Voice

A quote attributed to Albert Einstein (that the internet calls unconfirmed) is as follows: “There are only two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as if everything is.”

While I’ve been dallying in the realm of nihilism, contemplating the ineffectuality of all our toils, I’ve felt pretty unenthused. hashtag surprise.

I’m reminded of several years ago when I sat in a circle of women sharing about their spiritual journeys and one older woman said that sometimes she felt that as she prayed, she was talking into a phone that wasn’t connected to anything. She didn’t know if her prayers were heard, if they mattered.

But.

She said that she felt better inside herself when she did that act of praying anyway. Whether it was “received” or not, whether there were any “thing” on the other end of her prayer, she felt better.

So it begins to dawn on me that whether or not the seas are rising, the permafrost is melting, and swaths of earth are prey to fire, famine, drought, and flood…

If I believe in nothing, that nothing is a miracle, it feels too burdensome.

Perhaps religion is the opiate of the masses, but if the alternative is to see that squarely and soberly the world is an inevitable plane of demise, then I’ll take a hit of faith!

If to make meaning out of life means that I feel more engaged in it, then I moreso feel that I’m not wasting the time I do have on this planet. If to make it all meaningless and a hollow marking of time means that I feel less engaged in life, then I really do feel that I miss the mark.

Whatever the result of the “kids/no kids” decision, I know that I have to come to the light again, for my own heart and also for the impact I have (actually or energetically) on those around me.

Whether or not there is someone on the other end of the phone, I must allow myself to believe in connection. Whether or not there are indeed miracles in the world… well, I saw a double rainbow on the drive to work yesterday, and I can call that whatever I want, but calling it awe-inspiring and a gift of this life, brings levity to my soul.

Today’s Deepak/Oprah meditation from “The Energy of Attraction” included the sentences:

When I go into my true self, then the energy of attraction meets no resistance. All the complaints, demands, and criticisms that create problems at the level of the ego are erased.

For reasons unknown, when I heard the words “are erased,” my eyes began to well.

The relief, I suppose, of imagining that all the “complaints, demands, and criticisms” becoming absolved, removed, unburdened from my consciousness… Imagine the LIGHTNESS if we/I weren’t laden with those “ego thoughts”?!

It’s punctuating to notice that the experience of imagining freedom brings such relief—just the imagining of it! To be hamstrung by anything in this world, and then look down and realize, Hey, it’s gone!

Or, it could be.

Sometimes in meditation, like the other morning, I imagine placing all my thoughts about a topic or person into a cardboard box. Then I place that box in G-d’s hand.

G-d gets to hang onto that problem or person for a while, and when I’m done meditating, I have the option to come pick that box up… or not.

It’s a relief to know that I can set down my carrying of all my thoughts about them, if only for a brief moment, and not feel concerned with clinging onto my plans for them. However, for me, one benefit of this idea is that I can come back to them. I can pick it back up, this security-blanket sack of concern and habit and burden.

Clearly, this is not the benevolent security blanket a person may say they want, but when you’ve been carrying it around for so long, just giving myself a few minutes without it is a big enough deal.

And then, coming to this idea of Erasure — that these concerns or demands or criticisms don’t even have to exist. That it’s not about putting them down, or picking them up, or peeking inside the box to make sure all my worries are still tucked in tight. Rather, to imagine them GONE.

That, is different. That is a release of this security blanket at all.

Having experienced a moment this morning of imagining a relief, an ERASE, of my concerns/demands/criticisms, I do wonder if I can allow that spaciousness and levity to breathe

for

than

one

moment.

Category: light

The Scientific Philosopher

Giving up, in a good way.