Latest Read

It's been awhile since I've posted any of the books I've been reading. Why? Merely because I've been too swamped to do much consistently.

Anyway, I'm about 3/4 of the way through this book "A New Earth" and have enjoyed every bit of it. It's certainly one of those books you don't read through in one night, as there's a great deal of content in it that requires one to really think.

To sum up this book in a real small nutshell it's regarding our egos, and how for the most part we live unconsciously aware of what and how our egos are causing us to respond to our daily lives. For until we bring our thoughts to a conscious level our egos remain in control. However, when brought to full conscious awareness of our thoughts, actions and reactions to any and all situations our responses a dramatically different.

Here's one little example of what was written in this book that I found interesting.

CARRYING THE PAST
The inability or rather unwillingness of the human mind to let go of the past is beautifully illustrated in the story of two Zen monks, Tanzan and Ekido, who were walking along a country road that had become extremely muddy after heaving rains. Near a village, they came upon a young woman who was trying to cross the road, but the mud was so deep it would have ruined the silk kimono she was wearing. Tanzan at once picked her up and carried her to the other side.

The monks walked on in silence. Five hours later, as they were approaching the lodging temple, Ekido couldn't restrain himself any longer. "Why did you carry that girl across the road?" he asked. "We monks are not supposed to do things like that."

"I put the girl down hours ago," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"

Now imagine what life would be like for someone who lived like Ekido all the time, unable or unwilling to let go internally of situations, accumulating more and more "stuff" inside, and you get a sense of what life is like for the majority of people on our planet. What a heavy burden of past they carry around with them in their minds.

Again, this is merely an except for the book; however, it seemed rather applicable with regards to the recently much debated post by our dear fellow blogger, Khalid.

Very passionate comments have been filtering through this post which was initially done on April 13, 2008 and 6 days later continue to be going strong. I'm just as guilty because I continue to follow this particular post daily to see what's been commented on next. However, I wonder how much of the past memories or wounds or ways of thinking are going to continue dominating this post? Of course we all have past stories, memories, etc., however, how long do we continue to hold ourselves captive by these thoughts and memories? When do we free ourselves from them and recognize them as such, thoughts and memories? How do we ever more forward in our own existence and acknowledge that the only time we have is right NOW? We cannot change the past---and more importantly why would we want to? It is what it is--the past. Moreover, if remain stuck in the past how is it ever possible to think our future can be any different than our past when we've never released ourselves from the past imprisonment? Furthermore, is there really a future? None of us know that answer, so it would seem silly to tell ourselves things like, "when I obtain "this" then I'll be happy". Our happiness can only be created from this very moment of existence, so why rob ourselves of that splendid gift that God is trying to give us. Is it not true, the moment we feel most connected to God is in the present moment? We cannot go back to yesterday for that moment and we can't hope that tomorrow we'll feel close to God---it's only right NOW.

So, pondering, how long will we continue to debate, discuss, and perhaps offend our fellow humans for the sake of making our points which seems to be based on the past?
Perhaps by mere nurturing nature I feel like collecting everyone up, embracing us in silence and for us to just breath in unison, so we can be right here, right NOW. (I know ---- over the top, right?)