THE ODDITY OF BEING IN THE FLESH

In due time, after a life, we leave our bodies, generally as old flesh rag dolls, and weep our hearts out for the “loss of our loved ones” that has just occurred. None of this is “absurd” in itself; it just all happens as it happens. It is “real” in its own way but only that. The great problem and absurdity is that WE THINK IT IS REAL. We do exist, yes, but WE THINK THAT THIS HERE AND NOW IS ALL THAT THERE IS; we fail to see the obvious: the flesh puppets are only real until they are not, which is a very short matter in the scheme of it all. I am always aware of this and, while not always, have been rather aware of it my whole life, especially since I had what might be called an “out of body experience” when I was very sick at the age of seven, and then I saw my dead grandfather’s body when I was ten. That really cemented it for me; I knew that this was some kind of passing fancy. It wasn’t something I even had to remember because it was just so obvious to me. I even saw people as somehow already deceased—not in a morbid or fearful way but simply as how it is. I suppose this created a kind of detachment and a dissociation to a certain extent within me, but even a detachment from myself as though I were not quite real and surely quite temporal in existence. Though I was raised and educated in Roman Catholicism, I never quite believed that Heaven or Hell would follow an existence, especially, at age seven, after “meeting” and getting to know the ghost of the suicide who “lived” in my bedroom, the same place he killed himself prior to my moving there. I was quite aware of what might be called “after death dimensions” of existence, but at the time really had no concept of reincarnation, though this was to come to me rather strongly in my teenage years, especially after I joined the Rosicrucians (AMORC) at age 16 and then had my first bona fide past life experience at age 21, though it had also been clearly presented to me, when I was 19, by a person whom I met and am still friends with who knew me from a past life of 250 years ago.

          I have held numerous beliefs regarding reincarnation throughout my life but it was the actually experiences of past lives, some of which were independently corroborated and some of which could be placed in specific historical date, time, and place. In a certain sense, such past lives could be “proven” but such experiences are not about that; they are simply to be recognized rather than dwelled upon. One must live as who one is now, even in the obvious knowledge that it is most temporary and that over-identification with one’s self put one at an obvious disadvantage when it is time to move on.

          Being in the flesh on the third planet from the sun amazes me just about every single day. It is beautiful here and there is also the literal pain as the body deteriorates, as well as the emotional and mental pain. Of course there is obvious joy as well. I agree with Gibran that only those “who cry all of their tears and laugh all of their laughter” truly live, to paraphrase. The closer one is to the transitory nature of existence, including death itself, the closer one is to life itself. But, as I already said, we must, for our own sakes and sanity, not believe too much of what we think we are. Life is sacred, yes, and it passes to other states of being before we know it. Therefore it is best that we know ourselves, which is to say, what all “this” is.