Monday, October 1, 2012

Why are we here?

I shared in a discussion group two weeks ago that my personal story of suffering was over, but the feeling of suffering from all around -
from the mass or human consciousness - was experienced, but it wasn't mine. "Then why are you here?" said a woman.
That got me! I scraped at a few quick answers that came to mind and, finally said "I guess because I'm inspired to be." It wasn't satisfactory, not for me and probably not for anybody else.
I really wonder at my shares lately, why it is that if I was on the other side of the table from somebody who was sharing about freedom from suffering and enlightenment I would be asking them out for tea or coffee and picking their brains, and why it's my lot to sit across from negators and cynics.
The deeper I look at "why I am here," the less an answer is available. Whoosh! It is the unknown subsuming the possible answers. Even "I am consciousness experiencing itself" becomes rhetorical. What is it that people can possibly want to hear that will make them open their eyes, or at least break into childlike curiosity? That's one that one quite get answered by self-inquiry! Time to face the music.
This must be important - I just wrote almost the same post, from sharing at a teaching last night (for that experiencing see "Kundalini" entry in my Spiritual Odyssey blog).
After sharing that my experience is one of experiencing freedom from suffering, giving qualifying statements sincerely and in my own words, the woman next to me asked "why are you here?" I didn't know what to say but later realized the answers are endless, and because of that simply enter the cycle of cause and effect. Ultimately, I discovered yet another way to point to the truth: the effect of me appearing to be here, of all of us being present, has no ultimate cause. It is, truly, unknowable!
That is the deepest contemplation perhaps of interdependent causation. It can't point any deeper, to realize the causelessness of any effect. We CAN do this.

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