Recently, i had an uncle depart from this world. He was suffering from severe COPD. He had a life of struggles with moments of ease, pain with moments of painlessness, suffering with moments of satisfaction and loneliness with moments of love. For many of us this is the experiential norm on this life adventure. This life is an adventure in deed. We are born and we are guaranteed to die. Throughout the adventure we acquire a character role that is ever changing. We acquire ideas about the nature of the world and ourselves. Then we live by those ideas. We create an idea of ourselves…a persona. That persona is created under tension from the environment from which we are exposed…family, culture, social structure, land etc. The whole of our since of self is shaped by this environment. Many of us live our entire lives like puppets on a string dangling from the forces of our environment. We live our lives thinking that is who we truly are…puppets.(not consciously of course but puppets nonetheless.)
My uncle did his share of smoking which no doubt was the major cause of his terminal illness. What about the reason for which he was smoking? What ideas about himself and the world led him to smoking? i recall a conversation i had with him years earlier where i asked him why smoking. He responded with something like “it calms me…”. He was a ‘farm hand’ for the most part of his life working for various relatively small farmers in rural SC. With conventional farming techniques, there is no telling what impact that had on his health. How he came to be a ‘farm hand’? What led him to smoking? My uncle was an interesting man. Though he was in his sixties at the time of his death, he had a ‘mind of a child’. In many ways he was stuck at a preteen/teen phase of his development. How did that play into this painful illness at the end of his life? How did that play into so much suffering throughout his life? What were the forces in his environment? What are the ends and outs of a society that molded this family that molded him?
Who are we and what are we reflections of? Are we merely puppets? Or, is there more to who we truly are? Yes, my uncle had habits that predisposed him to his physical state at the end of his life. Yes, he chose to live that life based on the ideas he gathered from his environment. This does not make him good or bad. His life is not for petty gossip. That is an utter waste of time and a reflection of our own inner drama. He was a beautiful soul just playing a role. He was just doing what most of do…being unconscious puppets. Again, this is not an indictment of my uncle. To the contrary, it is invitation to look at our lives. His life is a teaching? The life he lived is a blessing? It is an inspiration to investigate our own.
What roles are we choosing to live? What forces are pulling our strings? Can we be free from these strings? Yes, we can!!! Investigate ourselves and the world. We can come to the truth of our being through a diligent investigation into our being. Ask yourself, who am i? Ask yourself, am i just a puppet on a string. Be quiet, listen closely and cultivate patience and you will realize something beyond this wild dream.
OM Shanti
