"The
meaning
of life is just to be
alive.
It is so plain and so obvious and so
simple.
And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were
necessary to achieve something beyond themselves."
A long, long time ago I (just like many people, I suppose) pondered the
question
"Is there life after
death?"
- in particular "What's the quality of life after
death?".
I've come to realize that whatever those
questions
reveal, is a function of the
context
in which they're asked. The onset of
transformation
has reshaped all my worn out old concepts and
beliefs
about
death.
The
question
"Is there life after
death?"
may actually not be a very
powerful
one unless it differentiates between asking "Is there life after
death?"
standing
in the
context
of
transformation,
and asking "Is there life after
death?"
notstanding
in the
context
of
transformation
(the
context is decisive).
When I tell the stone-cold
unflinchingtruth
about the latter, my old concepts of life after
death
and my concern about it / preparation for it, were little more than
ploys to avoid confronting the meaninglessness of life in the
present
(look: until the
onset of
transformation,
the whole topic of meaning in life stands at best on thin ice). It also
gave an out, an escape from the impelling immediacy of living
life now, fully ie point blank. So rather than "Is there life
after
death?",
a
question
I prefer to ask is "Is there life after
transformation?"
- in particular "What's the quality of life after
transformation?".
The
answer
to the former is yes (and the proof is we're here, aren't we?). It's
what the latter teases out that
gets
to
the heart
of the matter of what it is to be a
human being
- in particular of a
human beingstanding
in
transformation.
To a life always lived in survival,
transformation
is the end (that's partly why we
resist
it). "Survival" is a pretty broad
brush stroke.
So to be
clear,
what I'm referring to is survival of the
ego,
survival of
playing
personality /
mindgames
(dominate / avoid being dominated), survival of justifications and
excuses, survival of compromising
integrity
in favor of gratification. When all that ends, life is
transformed
... or ... when life is
transformed,
all that ends. I'm left being a full
human being.
I'm no longer
simply
doing "the best I can" in order to survive. The impressions I wanted to
make and the esteem that I wanted people to afford me, are no longer
important to me. My wanting approval from others in retrospect seems
naïvely quaint. I am no longer figuring life out: I'm just
alive and living.
I'm no longer in danger: I'm dangerous.
It's with wry chagrin that I look back on my erstwhile obsession with
finding "the
answer"
(and
believe
me: I looked everywhere). Now, as I look back on my once
big
conviction that if I found the
answer,
I would find out
who I really am,
it makes me smile. I never did find the
answer.
But
being around Werner,
I got
transformation.
And in
transformation,
I discover
who I really am
is the questioner: whole,
complete,
and satisfied - all
answers
optional. The "seeker"
act
is over. The "student of life"
identity
is
gone.
More than that, the hopeless confusing of me with the features of my
machinery,
is fini - and in it's place is a new, profound respect for
the ongoing
inexorable
unfolding of
Life itself
and our
true
nature as the
context
in which it all
shows up.
There's
nothing
to avoid. There's
nothing
to escape from. There's
nothing
to survive.
This is it.
It'll turn out the way it turns out. And I
get
to determine the space in which I'll live my life, the possibility for
my life, ie the
context
of our lives.
