Why "bad" things happen from the Vedic Path
click for more discussions fromThe Vedic View thru the eyes of Arci Edwards
I think it is rather safe to say that everyone, at least in our culture, has, at some time or another, either said or heard said "Why me? Why is this happening to me? I am a good person. I don't deserve this". My most memorable experience was 20 years ago when my mother was in the hospital awaiting surgery after a massive heart attack. My sisters and father were beside themselves with fear, anxiety and blame. They would lament, "Why is this happening to her. She never hurt a fly." That one statement revealed to me a plethora of illusion which I saw as the source of their despair. Over the next 7 months, as my mother dwindled in the hospital to her death due to surgical error, I witnessed first hand what happens to people when they cannot answer the question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Their lives became pools of toxic waste - my one sister divorced her husband, my two other sisters estranged themselves from each other, and my father drank himself to death within two years. Although still a novice, by that time, I had been studying Vedic philosophy full time for about 4 years. The knowledge I had gained from those studies allowed me to see "bad" things from a different perspective, from a point of calm trust interlaced with peak moments of celebration - those same moments which my family experienced as the greatest suffering. It was the sword of knowledge - knowledge of the soul, of karma, of the Supreme Creator, Maintainer and Annihilator, the Supreme Personality of Godhead - which cut my illusions and released me from material suffering.
I will share with you now what I know of the soul, karma and the Supreme Personality of Godhead as it pertains to the topic of "victimization" - "bad" things happening to "good" people for no reason. I hope my sharing of what I have learned can be of service to you in your life and in your service.
The Run Away Soul
Just as a drop of ocean water contains the same elements as the original ocean from which it came, the soul, or atma, being a part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, contains the same potencies as the Lord, but in minute quantity. As a part of the Supreme, our nature is that we are eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss. The original personality of the soul is nitya siddha krishna prema - full of love for the Supreme and that love is expressed in unconditional and uninterrupted service to the supreme object of our love, the Supreme Divine. Imagine a young married couple, totally devoted to each other, quite naturally and with great relish, they spontaneously serve each other. Or a young child, who, with constant meditation on their loving mother, will make tens of mud pies to offer her out of love. (Of course the mother does not accept the mud pies for eating, but she does accept the love with which they were made and offered - also paralleling our relationship with the Supreme). Now consider that same child, grown to be an adolescent. They no longer want to enjoy in the company of their loving parents; they want to enjoy separately. Sometimes they want to enjoy so separately, to be so independent, that they run away from home. This is our position. We have given up finding our pleasure in serving our beloved and instead want to enjoy independently. It is this desire to enjoy independently from the Lord which brings us to and keeps us in the material world.
Continuing with the analogy of the run-away teen. Now, suppose the father was rich, really, really rich. Suppose also that he also has a very unique quality - he is self-satisfied and does not need the love of his child to complete him in some way. Although he is grief-stricken and laments the loss of the intimate loving exchanges, he has no interest in forcing the child to stay, although it is certainly within his power. But to him, the real power is love and where is the love if there is force. So, rather than drag the teen back and lock them in their room, out of love, he secretly arranges for the child to eat, to be clothed, to have their utilities turned on, to get the job they wanted and, actually, to have all of their desires fulfilled - including forgetting about their connection to their father. This, too, is our position - wanting to enjoy separately, to be the energetic rather than the energy, we have been given this magnificent fantasy island where there is sunlight and moonlight to light our way and warm our bodies; where there are herbs and fruit-bearing trees and grains to feed our bellies; where there are resources to provide us shelter; where we have been given a body that is custom designed to enjoy according to our very personal tastes; and where we are provided with a curtain so that we may hide from our true identity, forget our relationship with our Divine Father and be the star in our own fantasy complete with stage, supporting actors, set design and props. We would not be able to "enjoy" fully our "independence" knowing that we were totally dependent on the Supreme. The run-away would be sickened to know that their "independence" was dependent upon their father. And the father would find nothing but mud in his mud pies if they were not offered with love. So, the father creates an entire fantasy island and remains behind the curtain of illusion, allowing the child to believe that they are actually the doer. (Can you see the irony of this? Can you see how much love He has for us? He is so selfless in His love for us that He provides us the tools to forget Him all the while He is supporting us. And what is He doing - He is waiting, yearning for us to want to remove that curtain, for us to return to His loving embrace and be firmly situated in our constitutional position of sat-cid-ananda, eternity, knowledge and bliss.)
Our coming to the material world is an attempt to have the kingdom of God without God. It is the only place where we can be god. It is the run-away adolescent in the inner city "enjoying" their "independence". But there is one problem with this "enjoyment", this "independence" - the fantasy is a fantasy, an illussion - not that it is false or does not exist, for it certainly does. But it is not what it appears to be. A mirage is not real water, but it is a real mirage. There really are refracted light waves due to differing densities of air. The elements are really there, but they are not what they appear to be - water. Similarly, there is no real enjoyment in acting in a movie, except that which comes from the acting itself - the ability to believably be someone or something other than what we are. The fast car from the movie set is not really ours to enjoy; our beautiful co-lead is not really ours to enjoy; the money we we made playing the CEO character is not really ours to enjoy. At the end of the gig - it all goes back. All of it. And that, for one who is attached to the perks of a particular role is a bummer! The enjoyment is temporary and we, being eternal, find that incredibly frustrating. So we go on searching. Trying out different roles - "Maybe this time I'll get to keep the car." "Maybe this time I can keep the fame." On and on, birth after birth, throughout 8,400,000 different bodies time and again, in an amnesiac stupor trying to enjoy that which is not ours to enjoy, totally forgetting our true identity. The acceptance of a mirage as real water and our attempts to squeeze out of it sweet drops of nectar to satisfy our thirst is the source of all our suffering in the material world. There is no real enjoyment independent of our relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead and there is no real suffering other than the absence of our Beloved.
In the Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 20. 117, it is explained:
(Please note that "Krsna" or "Krishna" is simply one of God's millions of names. It is a very intimate name which addresses His original form as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the reservoir of all pleasure)
kṛṣṇa bhuli' sei jīva anādi-bahirmukha
ataeva māyā tāre deya saḿsāra-duḥkha
TRANSLATION
"Forgetting Kṛṣṇa, the living entity has been attracted by the external feature from time immemorial. Therefore the illusory energy [māyā] gives him all kinds of misery in his material existence.
PURPORT
When the living entity forgets his constitutional position as an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, he is immediately entrapped by the illusory, external energy. The living entity is originally part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa and is therefore the superior energy of Kṛṣṇa. He is endowed with inconceivable minute energy that works inconceivably within the body. However, the living entity, forgetting his position, is situated in material energy. The living entity is called the marginal energy because by nature he is spiritual but by forgetfulness he is situated in the material energy. Thus he has the power to live either in the material energy or in the spiritual energy, and for this reason he is called marginal energy. Being in the marginal position, he is sometimes attracted by the external, illusory energy, and this is the beginning of his material life. When he enters the material energy, he is subjected to the threefold time measurement — past, present and future. Past, present and future belong only to the material world; they do not exist in the spiritual world. The living entity is eternal, and he existed before the creation of this material world. Unfortunately he has forgotten his relationship with Kṛṣṇa. The living entity's forgetfulness is described herein as anādi, which indicates that it has existed since time immemorial. One should understand that due to his desire to enjoy himself in competition with Kṛṣṇa, the living entity comes into material existence.
The Role of Karma
Although the material world is a "fantasy island" and we get to choose the fantasy in which we wish to be the star, how the fantasy unfolds may not be what we expected. We might have a particular desire, but it is within limits, which we have created from our past activities, as to HOW that desire is fulfilled.
When I first heard about karma - you know the common understanding of action and reaction - considering what I had experienced in my, at that time, short life, I thought, "Oh my gosh. I must have boiled babies alive in my past life to have "earned" the reactions I have received." But as I and my understanding of karma matured, I realized that it was not so cut and dry, not so linear. My suffering was not a payback in order to right some wrongs I had committed, to even the score, so to speak. I came to learn that karma, which really means actions that will produce a reaction, are made up of many interwoven subtle parts, parts which relate to each other dynamically. These parts are taste, desire, results of past actions, and current actions. OK... I know, it's a lot of words. So here is an example.
Suppose you're famished and on your way to a meeting. You stop at the convenience store to grab something to eat to hold you over. You select what you want: a bottle of juice, some nuts, a banana - only to find out you left your wallet at home. So you scrape the quarters and nickels from the car's ashtray and are able to buy a pack of crackers. Your taste (to have a satisfied hunger) created a desire. Your desire led you to act (stop to buy something to eat) and your past activities (forgetting your wallet) influenced how your desire was fulfilled. Some might think that they were being punished for not remembering their wallet. But it wasn't a punishment, it was a natural consequence. In the Srimad Bhagavatam 4.11.20 it is explained: The Supreme Personality of Godhead, in His feature of eternal time, is present in the material world and is neutral towards everyone. No one is His ally, and no one is His enemy. Within the jurisdiction of the time element, everyone enjoys or suffers the result of his own karma, or fruitive activities. As, when the wind blows, small particles of dust fly in the air, so, according to one's particular karma, one suffers or enjoys material life. But just because it was not a punishment, it is not to say that there is not a lesson presenting itself at every step.
Another example. Someone wants to buy their friend a birthday gift (desire). They have a particular taste (very exquisite) so they go to Kindred Spirits knowing that they will find the perfect present (scenario created to fulfill desire based upon developed tastes). They have $20 to spend (result of past activities - karma). They select the perfect gift from a large array of items under $20. We act according to our desires arising from our tastes within the boundaries of the results of our past activities. (It's ok, you can read that sentence again)
Let's take a quick look at taste. We use this word "taste" all of the time without realizing how it truly relates to what we experience - "Oh, no, he's not my taste"; "Jane do you still ski?" "Oh no, I lost my taste for it"; "I don't want to eat this apple. It's tasteless." There are unlimited tastes out there as evidenced by how many types of toothpaste there are, ice creams, shampoos - and bodies. Someone has a taste for meat, so they are given the body of a tiger, not as a punishment, but because it is best equipped for meat eating. Someone has a taste for sleeping, so they can have the body of a tree or a bear, where they can sleep for a long time. Someone has a taste for unrestricted sex so they are offered the body of a pigeon. Someone has the taste for soaring freedom, so they get the body of an eagle. Someone has a taste for altruism, so he is given the body of Mother Teresa. Taste not only draws us to or repels us from a particular situation (related to the popular understanding of the law of attraction), but it even determines what we see as existing in our circumstances (related to the popular understanding of the law of abundance). Again, we commonly use these terms - "I don't get what she sees in him"; "I don't see what he finds so attractive in her". And it is true. We really don't see those things. Some people walk past my store in Winston Salem, Kindred Spirits, on a daily basis for years and don't ever see it. If I were to put on a pair of glasses that has red lenses, and read a paper that was printed in red ink and blue ink, I would only be able to see the words in blue, the ones in red wouldn't even exist. And this is how the Divine is able to hide in plain sight. To the degree that our tastes have been refined, purified, from the lessons learned from our experiences, to that degree we see the hidden opportunities to revive our original God consciousness, to reconnect with the Divine. When our tastes are contaminated by material consciousness, we experience Him in ignorance, without any recollection of our loving relationship. When our tastes are purified, we experience Him in absolute truth, in rapturous devotion, with full recollection.
Remember all of that fantasy island stuff we were talking about earlier, well, have you ever seen an episode of the old TV series Fantasy Island? If you watch enough of them, you begin to see that not only does Mr. Roarke (definitely the God role) arrange for his guests' fantasies to be fulfilled, but he also provides opportunities for the unsuspecting visitors of Fantasy Island to learn something which the visitor did not even know he needed to know but which would bring him a higher level of happiness, a happiness which included the lower levels of happiness he sought through his fantasy, but which did not stop there; lessons which were embedded in the natural consequences of their actions carried out in their particular fantasy. Similarly, the Divine does not just create this fantasy island and then abandon us to our own demise. Quite the contrary, He incarnates with us into every body as Supersoul or Paramatma. He sanctions our every action and guides our every step toward where we want to go. Since nothing exists outside of Him, He even expands Himself into this fantasy island. The very object of our taste is nothing but Him. Whatever it is we hanker for is nothing but Him. There is nothing here but Him, but to see this we must have a refined taste, we must want to see Him. He can hide in plain sight because as long as we don't want to see Him, we won't. Hidden within every situation is an opportunity to revive our God consciousness. Every interaction with the material energy affords us the potential of moving toward love or toward lust, toward service or toward exploitation. These hidden clues, so to speak, aren't arbitrary or there by chance. They "just so happen to be" the very thing we need to learn in order to move closer to love. Have you seen the movie Ground Hog Day, where the guy wakes up again and again in the same day, trying to exploit others in so many ways until he learns how to selflessly love. Of course, his main goal is to enjoy the girl. What he thinks he wants is a pale and perverted reflection of what will bring him actual happiness. This he learns through the natural consequences of his actions. His tastes become refined and he becomes attracted to acts of genuine love. It is only then that he is qualified to "get the girl" because his relationship with her is not based on exploitation, but on love. This so accurately describes the soul's journey in the material world that it is a bit unnerving. What we come here seeking, we are not qualified to have. When we become qualified to have it, we no longer want it for our selves.
So, back to my mother. How did my perspective differ from my family's? They saw a bad thing happening to a good person, a punishment being unjustly inflicted. I saw neither a bad thing nor a good person. I saw a soul experiencing a natural consequence according to her tastes, her desires, her past actions, her current actions - this gave me detachment (which is not particularly enjoyable.) But the detachment allowed me to see a soul being given an opportunity to awaken from her amnesia, to purify her tastes, to align her actions with higher desires, to rise above the pool of material existence, her heart unfolding like a lotus to offer at the feet of her Divine beloved. That is what I saw hidden within the pain. And THAT was a joyous thing.
I will share with you now what I know of the soul, karma and the Supreme Personality of Godhead as it pertains to the topic of "victimization" - "bad" things happening to "good" people for no reason. I hope my sharing of what I have learned can be of service to you in your life and in your service.
The Run Away Soul
Just as a drop of ocean water contains the same elements as the original ocean from which it came, the soul, or atma, being a part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, contains the same potencies as the Lord, but in minute quantity. As a part of the Supreme, our nature is that we are eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss. The original personality of the soul is nitya siddha krishna prema - full of love for the Supreme and that love is expressed in unconditional and uninterrupted service to the supreme object of our love, the Supreme Divine. Imagine a young married couple, totally devoted to each other, quite naturally and with great relish, they spontaneously serve each other. Or a young child, who, with constant meditation on their loving mother, will make tens of mud pies to offer her out of love. (Of course the mother does not accept the mud pies for eating, but she does accept the love with which they were made and offered - also paralleling our relationship with the Supreme). Now consider that same child, grown to be an adolescent. They no longer want to enjoy in the company of their loving parents; they want to enjoy separately. Sometimes they want to enjoy so separately, to be so independent, that they run away from home. This is our position. We have given up finding our pleasure in serving our beloved and instead want to enjoy independently. It is this desire to enjoy independently from the Lord which brings us to and keeps us in the material world.
Continuing with the analogy of the run-away teen. Now, suppose the father was rich, really, really rich. Suppose also that he also has a very unique quality - he is self-satisfied and does not need the love of his child to complete him in some way. Although he is grief-stricken and laments the loss of the intimate loving exchanges, he has no interest in forcing the child to stay, although it is certainly within his power. But to him, the real power is love and where is the love if there is force. So, rather than drag the teen back and lock them in their room, out of love, he secretly arranges for the child to eat, to be clothed, to have their utilities turned on, to get the job they wanted and, actually, to have all of their desires fulfilled - including forgetting about their connection to their father. This, too, is our position - wanting to enjoy separately, to be the energetic rather than the energy, we have been given this magnificent fantasy island where there is sunlight and moonlight to light our way and warm our bodies; where there are herbs and fruit-bearing trees and grains to feed our bellies; where there are resources to provide us shelter; where we have been given a body that is custom designed to enjoy according to our very personal tastes; and where we are provided with a curtain so that we may hide from our true identity, forget our relationship with our Divine Father and be the star in our own fantasy complete with stage, supporting actors, set design and props. We would not be able to "enjoy" fully our "independence" knowing that we were totally dependent on the Supreme. The run-away would be sickened to know that their "independence" was dependent upon their father. And the father would find nothing but mud in his mud pies if they were not offered with love. So, the father creates an entire fantasy island and remains behind the curtain of illusion, allowing the child to believe that they are actually the doer. (Can you see the irony of this? Can you see how much love He has for us? He is so selfless in His love for us that He provides us the tools to forget Him all the while He is supporting us. And what is He doing - He is waiting, yearning for us to want to remove that curtain, for us to return to His loving embrace and be firmly situated in our constitutional position of sat-cid-ananda, eternity, knowledge and bliss.)
Our coming to the material world is an attempt to have the kingdom of God without God. It is the only place where we can be god. It is the run-away adolescent in the inner city "enjoying" their "independence". But there is one problem with this "enjoyment", this "independence" - the fantasy is a fantasy, an illussion - not that it is false or does not exist, for it certainly does. But it is not what it appears to be. A mirage is not real water, but it is a real mirage. There really are refracted light waves due to differing densities of air. The elements are really there, but they are not what they appear to be - water. Similarly, there is no real enjoyment in acting in a movie, except that which comes from the acting itself - the ability to believably be someone or something other than what we are. The fast car from the movie set is not really ours to enjoy; our beautiful co-lead is not really ours to enjoy; the money we we made playing the CEO character is not really ours to enjoy. At the end of the gig - it all goes back. All of it. And that, for one who is attached to the perks of a particular role is a bummer! The enjoyment is temporary and we, being eternal, find that incredibly frustrating. So we go on searching. Trying out different roles - "Maybe this time I'll get to keep the car." "Maybe this time I can keep the fame." On and on, birth after birth, throughout 8,400,000 different bodies time and again, in an amnesiac stupor trying to enjoy that which is not ours to enjoy, totally forgetting our true identity. The acceptance of a mirage as real water and our attempts to squeeze out of it sweet drops of nectar to satisfy our thirst is the source of all our suffering in the material world. There is no real enjoyment independent of our relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead and there is no real suffering other than the absence of our Beloved.
In the Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 20. 117, it is explained:
(Please note that "Krsna" or "Krishna" is simply one of God's millions of names. It is a very intimate name which addresses His original form as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the reservoir of all pleasure)
kṛṣṇa bhuli' sei jīva anādi-bahirmukha
ataeva māyā tāre deya saḿsāra-duḥkha
TRANSLATION
"Forgetting Kṛṣṇa, the living entity has been attracted by the external feature from time immemorial. Therefore the illusory energy [māyā] gives him all kinds of misery in his material existence.
PURPORT
When the living entity forgets his constitutional position as an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, he is immediately entrapped by the illusory, external energy. The living entity is originally part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa and is therefore the superior energy of Kṛṣṇa. He is endowed with inconceivable minute energy that works inconceivably within the body. However, the living entity, forgetting his position, is situated in material energy. The living entity is called the marginal energy because by nature he is spiritual but by forgetfulness he is situated in the material energy. Thus he has the power to live either in the material energy or in the spiritual energy, and for this reason he is called marginal energy. Being in the marginal position, he is sometimes attracted by the external, illusory energy, and this is the beginning of his material life. When he enters the material energy, he is subjected to the threefold time measurement — past, present and future. Past, present and future belong only to the material world; they do not exist in the spiritual world. The living entity is eternal, and he existed before the creation of this material world. Unfortunately he has forgotten his relationship with Kṛṣṇa. The living entity's forgetfulness is described herein as anādi, which indicates that it has existed since time immemorial. One should understand that due to his desire to enjoy himself in competition with Kṛṣṇa, the living entity comes into material existence.
The Role of Karma
Although the material world is a "fantasy island" and we get to choose the fantasy in which we wish to be the star, how the fantasy unfolds may not be what we expected. We might have a particular desire, but it is within limits, which we have created from our past activities, as to HOW that desire is fulfilled.
When I first heard about karma - you know the common understanding of action and reaction - considering what I had experienced in my, at that time, short life, I thought, "Oh my gosh. I must have boiled babies alive in my past life to have "earned" the reactions I have received." But as I and my understanding of karma matured, I realized that it was not so cut and dry, not so linear. My suffering was not a payback in order to right some wrongs I had committed, to even the score, so to speak. I came to learn that karma, which really means actions that will produce a reaction, are made up of many interwoven subtle parts, parts which relate to each other dynamically. These parts are taste, desire, results of past actions, and current actions. OK... I know, it's a lot of words. So here is an example.
Suppose you're famished and on your way to a meeting. You stop at the convenience store to grab something to eat to hold you over. You select what you want: a bottle of juice, some nuts, a banana - only to find out you left your wallet at home. So you scrape the quarters and nickels from the car's ashtray and are able to buy a pack of crackers. Your taste (to have a satisfied hunger) created a desire. Your desire led you to act (stop to buy something to eat) and your past activities (forgetting your wallet) influenced how your desire was fulfilled. Some might think that they were being punished for not remembering their wallet. But it wasn't a punishment, it was a natural consequence. In the Srimad Bhagavatam 4.11.20 it is explained: The Supreme Personality of Godhead, in His feature of eternal time, is present in the material world and is neutral towards everyone. No one is His ally, and no one is His enemy. Within the jurisdiction of the time element, everyone enjoys or suffers the result of his own karma, or fruitive activities. As, when the wind blows, small particles of dust fly in the air, so, according to one's particular karma, one suffers or enjoys material life. But just because it was not a punishment, it is not to say that there is not a lesson presenting itself at every step.
Another example. Someone wants to buy their friend a birthday gift (desire). They have a particular taste (very exquisite) so they go to Kindred Spirits knowing that they will find the perfect present (scenario created to fulfill desire based upon developed tastes). They have $20 to spend (result of past activities - karma). They select the perfect gift from a large array of items under $20. We act according to our desires arising from our tastes within the boundaries of the results of our past activities. (It's ok, you can read that sentence again)
Let's take a quick look at taste. We use this word "taste" all of the time without realizing how it truly relates to what we experience - "Oh, no, he's not my taste"; "Jane do you still ski?" "Oh no, I lost my taste for it"; "I don't want to eat this apple. It's tasteless." There are unlimited tastes out there as evidenced by how many types of toothpaste there are, ice creams, shampoos - and bodies. Someone has a taste for meat, so they are given the body of a tiger, not as a punishment, but because it is best equipped for meat eating. Someone has a taste for sleeping, so they can have the body of a tree or a bear, where they can sleep for a long time. Someone has a taste for unrestricted sex so they are offered the body of a pigeon. Someone has the taste for soaring freedom, so they get the body of an eagle. Someone has a taste for altruism, so he is given the body of Mother Teresa. Taste not only draws us to or repels us from a particular situation (related to the popular understanding of the law of attraction), but it even determines what we see as existing in our circumstances (related to the popular understanding of the law of abundance). Again, we commonly use these terms - "I don't get what she sees in him"; "I don't see what he finds so attractive in her". And it is true. We really don't see those things. Some people walk past my store in Winston Salem, Kindred Spirits, on a daily basis for years and don't ever see it. If I were to put on a pair of glasses that has red lenses, and read a paper that was printed in red ink and blue ink, I would only be able to see the words in blue, the ones in red wouldn't even exist. And this is how the Divine is able to hide in plain sight. To the degree that our tastes have been refined, purified, from the lessons learned from our experiences, to that degree we see the hidden opportunities to revive our original God consciousness, to reconnect with the Divine. When our tastes are contaminated by material consciousness, we experience Him in ignorance, without any recollection of our loving relationship. When our tastes are purified, we experience Him in absolute truth, in rapturous devotion, with full recollection.
Remember all of that fantasy island stuff we were talking about earlier, well, have you ever seen an episode of the old TV series Fantasy Island? If you watch enough of them, you begin to see that not only does Mr. Roarke (definitely the God role) arrange for his guests' fantasies to be fulfilled, but he also provides opportunities for the unsuspecting visitors of Fantasy Island to learn something which the visitor did not even know he needed to know but which would bring him a higher level of happiness, a happiness which included the lower levels of happiness he sought through his fantasy, but which did not stop there; lessons which were embedded in the natural consequences of their actions carried out in their particular fantasy. Similarly, the Divine does not just create this fantasy island and then abandon us to our own demise. Quite the contrary, He incarnates with us into every body as Supersoul or Paramatma. He sanctions our every action and guides our every step toward where we want to go. Since nothing exists outside of Him, He even expands Himself into this fantasy island. The very object of our taste is nothing but Him. Whatever it is we hanker for is nothing but Him. There is nothing here but Him, but to see this we must have a refined taste, we must want to see Him. He can hide in plain sight because as long as we don't want to see Him, we won't. Hidden within every situation is an opportunity to revive our God consciousness. Every interaction with the material energy affords us the potential of moving toward love or toward lust, toward service or toward exploitation. These hidden clues, so to speak, aren't arbitrary or there by chance. They "just so happen to be" the very thing we need to learn in order to move closer to love. Have you seen the movie Ground Hog Day, where the guy wakes up again and again in the same day, trying to exploit others in so many ways until he learns how to selflessly love. Of course, his main goal is to enjoy the girl. What he thinks he wants is a pale and perverted reflection of what will bring him actual happiness. This he learns through the natural consequences of his actions. His tastes become refined and he becomes attracted to acts of genuine love. It is only then that he is qualified to "get the girl" because his relationship with her is not based on exploitation, but on love. This so accurately describes the soul's journey in the material world that it is a bit unnerving. What we come here seeking, we are not qualified to have. When we become qualified to have it, we no longer want it for our selves.
So, back to my mother. How did my perspective differ from my family's? They saw a bad thing happening to a good person, a punishment being unjustly inflicted. I saw neither a bad thing nor a good person. I saw a soul experiencing a natural consequence according to her tastes, her desires, her past actions, her current actions - this gave me detachment (which is not particularly enjoyable.) But the detachment allowed me to see a soul being given an opportunity to awaken from her amnesia, to purify her tastes, to align her actions with higher desires, to rise above the pool of material existence, her heart unfolding like a lotus to offer at the feet of her Divine beloved. That is what I saw hidden within the pain. And THAT was a joyous thing.
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