we have lived it

One who meditates upon the Self
and realizes the Self sees the Self everywhere,
and rejoices in the Self.
Such a one lives in freedom
and is at home wherever he goes.
But those who pursue finite phenomena
are blind to the Self and live in bondage.
~ Chandogya Upanishad, (Chapter VII, 25.2)

I know and have known this serenity of solitude, being at peace as One, knowing of everything and nothing at all.

Yet, I have also known and know the greater joy of sorrow—to have loved and let go, to have possessed, happiness that is human and lost Her to circumstance, to have distinguished and made someone more significant than all the others, even while accepting we are all the same.

It is admirable to pursue the greater understanding of the Self, but it is greater to understand that which makes us separate from it as well.

As selfish and as antithetical to the pursuit of selflessness as it may seem—Love of one above everyone and everything is life’s greatest curse and blessing. It is the ultimate experience and the greatest test of the here and now that one might endure, and knowing it, somehow, is worth all the residual loneliness we dare bear in its wake.

Ultimately, by coveting the love of others and the beauty that is loving one other, we may be pursuing a finite phenomena. But ultimately, we ourselves are finite, and it is best to pursue that which is not only becoming of you, but which allows you to better appreciate what you actually are. Love does that in a many splendored way, and makes its mark upon our lives, so that we may realize that we have lived it.

*

a conversation with the Self

“i was happier before i knew her.”
“were you?”
“well, maybe not ‘happier,’ but at least happy.”
“really?”
“i guess, i’m not sure now. certainly, i was lonely, and thus, at times unhappy, yet, i think i had accepted my loneliness and had re-construed it as peaceful solitude.” “thus, you were content, yet alone.”
“yes, alone. and, that is why it seems that the ebbs and tides of joy seem to be often influenced by the gravitational pull of those around us—who we encounter and engage and are enticed by—willfully, serendipitously, by chance, by Fate.”
“some, more than others.”
“a few, much more than most.”
“one…”
“…unlike anyone else before.”
“and ever again.”

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