The Mystery
“You are Life passing through your body, passing through your mind, passing through your soul. Once you find that out, not with logic, not with the intellect, but because you can feel that Life, you find out that you are the force that makes the flowers open and close, that makes the hummingbird fly from flower to flower. You find out that you are in every tree, and you are in every animal, vegetable, and rock. You are that force that moves the wind and breathes through your body. The whole universe is a living being that is moved by that force, and that is what you are. You are Life.”
~ Miguel Ángel Ruiz
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‘Go to the Limits of Your Longing’
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours
We don’t know who we are nor where we come from, in spite of all the pronouncements from science, religion and philosophy. We’re guessing, but we have to overcome illusions created by appearance. Everything looks solid as it comes into physical manifestation and then passes away. We get very attached to physical forms, as if those forms are more real than the energies animating them. We hope there’s an afterlife where we’ll continue, keeping our memories and attachments entact.
What is this world? Why does it exist? What does death mean? Is it real or is it an illusion? We have comforting stories about Heaven and frightening stories about Hell, but nobody has ever visited those places and lived to tell the tale. Or almost nobody; a few people have returned after near death to report that…
