Thursday, August 5, 2010

Spirituality In Hindsight

It is so beautiful to sit and reminisce about how it was so bad at one point and then how strange unexpected coincidences changed it all. It is so nice to talk about your story once it is over and all the pain and hardships have disappeared into a happy ending dissolving all the bitterness that years of agony can leave behind, and it is even better to lecture people about how your trip was exactly like theirs but that you persevered and eventually won. If nothing, it definitely is an ego booster.

It is great when you do that armed with the beauty of hindsight, sometimes the screw ups are even downplayed and the mistakes camouflaged. We can even go to lengths trying to make them sound a bit funny, even though they could not have been farther away from even being remotely amusing at the time they happened. But again hindsight gives you this advantage. You can now mock what happened in the past, it no longer has the ability to hurt you.

The trick however is to be IN the situation and be armed with the same persuasion, strength, positive outlook and spirituality that you hold like a winning shining sword high above your head once you have emerged as the winner.

Can you?

Can you, when in the midst of the darkest deepest hell hole of your life, be positive? Can you, when despair is so thick you can hold it and sometimes even try to choke, be all smiles and happiness? Can you, when you feel that life is like a huge slab of concrete ready to flatten you, be spiritual?

Can you?

Isn't that why we read all our spiritual books? Isn’t that why “Self Help” sections were invented in bookshops? Isn't that why we watched time and again “The Secret”? Isn’t that why we held on to all the law of attraction books (and other life saving books) we could find like we hold on to dear life? Isn’t that why we struggle to live in the now and discover our new earth? You have the lady that changed everything in 6-8 weeks, yes as if its a delivery date for a product, and the Lawyer that sold his Ferrari to become a monk but made more millions selling his books, and the lady who made a million dollars in one month and got her children back from her ogre of an in-law. Can these stories really happen? When in despair we would like to believe so, when in despair we want anyone to tell us anything that would change the current situation to a better one, hence fortune tellers, tarot card readers and other similar “professions” prosper. That is why many people turn to their respective religious practices trying to hear the voice within that will console them and heal them. We just want that voice regardless to whom it belongs to tell us that it is going to be ok.

And you know what, it will be. Let that voice be yours that tells you it will be ok. Mind you I have not emerged on the other end, yet, still no shining sword held high and no victory tales. But I will be ok, just like you will, just like we all will. Regardless of your convictions, regardless of which school of thought you subscribe to, you will. I know how difficult it is to hold on to the positive thought, believe me they sometimes evade me like that mirage Aladdin saw in the desert, but, I will keep looking for his lamp. I think each one of us has his very own lamp we just have to look for it and keep looking and one day we will find it, we just have to decide how soon we want it, it is all up to us.

However, one wish will not need any lamp, make a wish to love and be loved, that is what matters at the end when this trip is over, this is what makes it worth it. This is the only thing on dark nights that makes me believe that it will be OK.

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