Spider Dream
At the annual Quebec trip, I was talking to one of Luke's friends, although I'm not sure which one bc his identity kept shifting and changing.
We were standing around chatting, enjoying the fresh cool air present just after the morning dew has fallen. I see a larger spiderweb, highlighted by all the dew drops. A brown hairy spider is sitting on it; he had to be 3 inches.
I said, "Aww, look at the spider."
I put my hand out and had it crawl onto me. The friend started freaking out.
"What if it's poisonous," he asked.
Still enrapt, looking closely at the spider, examining it, enjoying the tickling sensation of it walking across my hand and arm, I said that it didn't matter much. Death is just another state of existence, one which we happen to understand very little. As humans, we tend to know very little about other states of existence, except the one we limit ourselves to. We also tend to fear the unknown. But why fear the unknown? Since we know nothing of it, there should be nothing to fear. Lack of knowledge about a subject tends to scare us. There's no reason for it, though. The universe is what it is, and fearing it isn't going to change anything or make one happier. If we all embraced the unknown, the world would be a much happier place. Why fear another state of existence? Maybe we fear that it is a state of non-existence, only bc we believe it's different from what we are now, only bc we watch the passing away of someone's body and see it as "the end". But there's much more to us than the flesh; the flesh is transient. There is the consciousness, the underlying consciousness of us all. When we're mindful and become one with the void, with space, with the consciousness, we are happy and understand the most essential part of the universe: stillness.
We were standing around chatting, enjoying the fresh cool air present just after the morning dew has fallen. I see a larger spiderweb, highlighted by all the dew drops. A brown hairy spider is sitting on it; he had to be 3 inches.
I said, "Aww, look at the spider."
I put my hand out and had it crawl onto me. The friend started freaking out.
"What if it's poisonous," he asked.
Still enrapt, looking closely at the spider, examining it, enjoying the tickling sensation of it walking across my hand and arm, I said that it didn't matter much. Death is just another state of existence, one which we happen to understand very little. As humans, we tend to know very little about other states of existence, except the one we limit ourselves to. We also tend to fear the unknown. But why fear the unknown? Since we know nothing of it, there should be nothing to fear. Lack of knowledge about a subject tends to scare us. There's no reason for it, though. The universe is what it is, and fearing it isn't going to change anything or make one happier. If we all embraced the unknown, the world would be a much happier place. Why fear another state of existence? Maybe we fear that it is a state of non-existence, only bc we believe it's different from what we are now, only bc we watch the passing away of someone's body and see it as "the end". But there's much more to us than the flesh; the flesh is transient. There is the consciousness, the underlying consciousness of us all. When we're mindful and become one with the void, with space, with the consciousness, we are happy and understand the most essential part of the universe: stillness.