aelolive

  When I Lay Down in a Death Box One day, I sat quietly with the world before me—a world full of color and feeling, but also full of suffering. I had heard the quiet sobs of frightened people. I had seen them carry their worries as though the weight could never be put down. Some had lived with restlessness for so long that they believed it was incurable. I knew nothing about the lines on a person’s palm. But I was beginning to recognize the lines drawn through a life by habits, flaws, and actions. As I sat there, my thoughts seemed to walk beside me through this colorful garden of human troubles. Then one thought turned to me and asked, “Jinder, what do you want to do with your life?” I glanced around and answered, “I don’t want to live like this.” None of the roles life seemed to offer felt like mine. My thought asked again, “Well, madam, you must do something . You don’t want to study or take up a job. What exactly do you want to do?” “I want to say goodbye to every suffering in ...

 The Harmonium of Life and Death Finding stillness within the movement of life The relentless speed of today’s world does not carry me forward; it holds me back. It leaves so little room for stillness that I sometimes feel it denies me the opportunity to participate in life in my own natural way. Even if I wished to join this race, I could not. Racing is simply not in my nature. I pause. I have always paused, and I believe I will continue to pause. But I will never race. Nor do I wish to learn how to swim merely to reach the shore everyone else is trying to reach. I can only drift. And even my drifting must happen in silence—not toward another shore, but deeper into the mystery of existence. The Disciple Hidden Within Me Every movement of life carries a lesson. Every event, relationship, silence, difficulty, and passing moment has something to teach me. When I become attentive to these movements, life transforms me into a disciple. I do not need to enter a classroom to learn from e...