Total Bareness
We
all act as if we forget that the end of the road is total bareness.
Our enterprises, our
families and even our body will disappear one day, without warning. A
part of us may find that revolting. Nonetheless, it is one of
nature’s laws and there is no bypass.
Based on this deliberate act
of forgetting, our beliefs, our certainties, the emotions which carry us away
and our judgments are without foundation. The justice of man is itself based
on the illusion that such fleeting things should not, in fact, pass. In the
end, we judge others and events from our ignorance and fears. We
live in illusion.
But,
in reality, we are not here to play this blind man’s game. There is another
option.
Our
society could be inspired by a more honest, braver way of looking at things,
avoiding always trying to pin the blame on someone for heatwaves, hurricanes,
the death of kin and the evanescence of what we undertake.
We
need to confront reality and see what lesson it has for us.
Consequently,
we need to see everything we have built on this illusion.
A
driver who loses control of his vehicle doesn’t waste time tuning his car
radio.
We’re
permanently arranging our little universe as if it were eternal and as if it
were the ultimate goal of our life. And so we are the permanent creators of
our own distresses because of the natural law I referred to above.
We’re
just passing through, our body won’t survive and our love and family
alliances will dissolve when we leave. Can we look this reality squarely in
the eyes and draw an inspired conclusion for our life? Or do we want to
continue to believe that our enterprises and alliances that are preserved at
all costs for forty or fifty years are the true fruits of our stay on earth?
There
really is something else we must realize. We are not doomed to remain blind.
Our time here has a much deeper meaning which requires our full attention and
a great part of the energy otherwise devoted to making what will not last...
last.
Our cries and laws simply
express our terror when faced with the laws of nature. We refuse change, what
is transient, what is beyond our control and condemn anyone who thinks
otherwise. Those who risk looking beyond the decor we have created to avoid
contemplating the great perspective make us face up once more to our fear and
flight. We prefer silencing them rather than seeing our buried fears emerge
once more. This is understandable, since we have been brought up to believe in
an artificial world where man has become lord of the manor and could well
believe in his own immortality. The rest can only be what is currently
referred to as mystical or sectarian madness. Just stepping back for a moment
from the turmoil which carries us away in the illusion of our enterprises and
beliefs is looked down upon. We must keep up the frenzied pace. But for whom and for what, since
we’re all in the same boat? Such is the absurdity
of the collective hypnosis where those who think they pull the strings are
victims of their own manipulation.
We
need to be shaken and awaken. We need to cease gagging the sages and listening
to fools (the former have been confused with the latter for too long). We need
to look at the human condition in its brutal reality and draw a fundamental
lesson for our actions and undertakings on earth. And we must cease at all
costs being offended when someone shakes the branch on which we’re sitting.
The
end of the road is total bareness. But we must all deeply love this nakedness
and understand its meaning. We must take off our judges’ and detractors’
powdered wigs, our tight-fitting suits which represent a power we do not have
and our criminal arrogance when faced with the unknown.
Dear
brothers and sisters, we know nothing. But we have spent centuries killing
each other to defend our ignorance! Who, in all conscience, could want to
perpetuate such folly?
We
have neglected an essential part of our assignment, which does not prevent us
from having children, families, prosperous enterprises etc. but without
deluding ourselves further. We have something to discover that is much more
important and we have caused so much suffering and injustice by according
paramount importance to secondary things, to the point of believing them to be
immortal.
For
those interested in this discovery, the race is over and Life begins.