An article by Sha'Tara, local writer and friend.

           
Do we owe Life Anything?

    [thoughts from    ~a burning woman~   by Sha'Tara]

Excerpt from the eBook Siddhartha by Herman Hesse:
Siddhartha learned a lot when he was with the Samanas, many ways leading away from the self he learned to go.  He went the way of self-denial by means of pain, through voluntarily suffering and overcoming pain, hunger, thirst, tiredness.  He went the way of self-denial by means of meditation, through imagining the mind to be void of all conceptions.  These and other ways he learned to go, a thousand times he left his self, for hours and days he remained in the non-self.  But though the ways led away from the self, their end nevertheless always led back to the self.  Though Siddhartha fled from the self a thousand times, stayed in nothingness, stayed in the animal, in the stone, the return was inevitable, inescapable was the hour, when he found himself back in the sunshine or in the moonlight, in the shade or in the rain, and was once again his self and Siddhartha, and again felt the agony of the cycle which had been forced upon him.

"When you begin to awaken to the greater realities, you will encounter the high and the low, not always in balance.  The balancing, that is up to you.  But know this: that if you are attracted more to one than the other, you are jeopardizing your awakening and purpose, for there can  be no balance in your life should one or the other rule.  Some days you will feel with terrible certainty the horror and terror that stalks your world and devours thousands of innocent lives daily.  Some days you will awaken and feel yourself completely in love, but your love will not be for the things your senses know about, it will be a conceptual love.  You will be in a state of grace, in the awareness that moves Spirit beyond the All Time.  Your love will be a concept love, that which you once called 'unconditional love' but which always eluded you.  That is a fine place to be in, indeed, and wouldn't it be pleasant to remain there?  But you may not.  For such a state is as destructive as remaining in the state of horror mentioned earlier.  The purpose of the Avatar is to bring the two together, that each may accept the other.  Understand this and your path will begin to make sense."

So speak the Teachers.  Doubtless they are correct.  Lately I have 'walked' in both realities and as I look at them I find myself shrinking into an infinitesimal point so as not to be crushed by the hammer of utter evil upon the anvil of bliss.  I make myself bend like the reed in the wind so I do not crash to the ground as did the proverbial mighty oak who feared no storm. 

I haven't read the whole book on Siddhartha, but I know what he yet lacked in the above excerpt; what he had yet to learn, not self-denial but compassion.  Walking in compassion is what my previous teachers called riding the Nexus.  However frightened (of events, or of personal failure); however tired; however tempted to just let go and slip down one side to find rest, to forget, those who choose to know must walk the razor's edge day and night.  We no longer even look to death for a reprieve because we know that 'death' is an illusion.  It's that place along the path where you cannot see beyond but you know it is not the end of the path, you just don't know for certain what is on it.  Comfort?  Hardship?  Joy?  Sorrow? 

To be safe, you tell yourself that it's OK.  You think, "I've gotten this far, I can do the rest, one step at a time.  If I meet a hungry tiger, I will give him my flesh to eat.  If I meet an angel, I will spend time listening to the voice of God.  Either way, I will experience something else, learn something new."

And that, in a nutshell, is what life is: something new, each and every moment.  New does not mean better, it just means different.  If I can accept different in any guise, I can accept anything. 

Offered as inspiration for those who are in darkness now; as a warning for those who believe life will always be this good.  It doesn't owe us anything.  Do we owe life anything?