- Too many of us are overburdened and overworked. Too
many of us have left the magical musical mystery tour, shoulders stooping
and minds cluttered with the day's debris. Too many of us move in robotic
fashion from day to day until the last day's breath removes us from the
litter of life.
-
- "Is that all there is?" the song asks.
-
- No, my friends, there is so much more. But how can I
describe it? How can my words transport you to unknown worlds and experiences
that defy reason?
-
- It was in the late 1980's that I sat in my room doing
a simple Zen meditation. Suddenly I felt a tremendous pulling at my
head. I can still recall the intensity, though I know it has been dulled
with the passing of time. I shot out of my body and found myself on a
screen of light. There were filmy projections coming towards the screen.
But the visuals were only a small part of the experience. The profundity
was a "knowing". For it was in that moment that I knew I had
always been and always would be.
-
- And although I spent years raising three children as
a single parent, and getting mired in the responsibilities of such a formidable
task, the experience lurked in my reverie. It whispered that there was
more to life than this three dimensional reality. It cheered me onward
when I felt unable to put one foot in front of the other.
-
- People could not understand my mystical experience so
I rarely shared it. I did not need to convince anyone. I did not want
to listen to well meaning mouths trivializing me with supposed scientific
explanations that only served to remind me that science lags behind truth.
-
-
- "The most beautiful and profound emotion we can
experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the power of all true
science." Albert Einstein
-
-
-
- Ramona Bell died this week. She was 47 years old. Because
we have fooled ourselves into believing that people die according to age,
the death of a younger person seems all the more cruel. Does death
assume a certain fairness for those who have lived a long time? Are those
who die young being cheated? Are we trying to make sense of the senseless?
-
- I met Ramona Bell only one time and her light shown brightly.
Yet, there were years when I met her nightly through her husband's words
and her husband's love. And though politics put a distance between Art
Bell and myself and I had stopped listening to him, when I heard of Ramona's
death the distance dissolved and I cried for his loss. We were one in
sorrow.
-
-
- When the Hindu Saint Sri Ramakrishna's cousin died, a
part of him wept for his earthly loss. And yet, another part of him danced,
for he knew that his cousin was now unbounded by the human body. Another
Soul was running free in the cosmos.
-
- Ramona Bell died this week. She was 47 years old. Each
death should remind us of the preciousness as well as the precariousness
of life. Each death should remind us that life is a gift to be lived
moment by moment.......consciously and purposefully.
-
- Farewell Ramona.
-
-
-
- When I die...
-
- When I die
- when my coffin
- is being taken out
- you must never think
- i am missing this world
-
- don't shed any tears
- don't lament or
- feel sorry
- i'm not falling
- into a monster's abyss
-
- when you see
- my corpse is being carried
- don't cry for my leaving
- i'm not leaving
- i'm arriving at eternal love
-
- when you leave me
- in the grave
- don't say goodbye
- remember a grave is
- only a curtain
- for the paradise behind
-
- you'll only see me
- descending into a grave
- now watch me rise
- how can there be an end
- when the sun sets or
- the moon goes down
-
- it looks like the end
- it seems like a sunset
- but in reality it is a dawn
- when the grave locks you up
- that is when your soul is freed
-
- have you ever seen
- a seed fallen to earth
- not rise with a new life
- why should you doubt the rise
- of a seed named human
-
- have you ever seen
- a bucket lowered into a well
- coming back empty
- why lament for a soul
- when it can come back
- like Joseph from the well
-
- when for the last time
- you close your mouth
- your words and soul
- will belong to the world of
- no place no time
-
- ~RUMI, ghazal number 911,
- translated May 18, 1992,
- by Nader Khalili.
-
-
- Copyright 2005 Judy Andreas
- _www.judyandreas.com
- JUDE10901@AOL.com
-
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