The Wind, The Ocean, Love and Kata

Kata sat on a rock at the water's edge, looked out across the flat expanse of the sea, and listened to the gentle lapping of the waves as they broke idly onto the shore.  It was hard to imagine that two days ago, the ocean had been stirred up into a wild frenzy by a wind that had rushed across the water to meet the land, where it threatened to tear out all of the trees by their roots and hurl them into the air.  The sea was certainly a capricious beast that could never be tamed, she thought.  

A few years before, Kata had lost her father to one such storm that rolled in during the spring.  A fisherman, her father had been out in his boat casting his nets when out of nowhere came the fury of a mighty wind.  The skies that had been one moment clear and blue suddenly became dark grey and threatening, obliterating the sun and casting a darkness across the day.  Even though her father worked furiously to haul his nets back in, little did he know that it was already too late for him. Death had marked him as His already. There would be no escape.

Perched on her rock, Kata gave silent thanks for the life of her father and recalled how he would return from a day at sea, scoop her up in his huge arms and throw her into the air.  "Here's my most precious fish!" he would shout as he caught her safely again and they would both laugh together.  A lone tear escaped from the corner of her eye and trickled down her cheek.  Kata quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand and was annoyed with herself.  "Stupid Kata!" she chided herself,  "The women do not cry for their lost men, they rejoice and laugh in the meaning of their lives, they give thanks for the sacrifice, and for the return to the beginning, so that they can live again a different life", she repeated the words of the elder women.  She knew that all life must end and that eventually, everything must return to the beginning, just as it always had, just as it always would.  This was the eternal cycle.

These thoughts of her father stayed with her.  As she looked out over the ocean, she pictured his face, a face that was lined and weather beaten by the years of sun, wind, and salt spray, and a face that expressed deep love and joy for life and for her.  Whether it was the gentle lapping of the waves against the shore that had lulled her into the trance, Kata could not say, but she felt herself lifting away from her consciousness, her soul rising up, as if it were a separate entity from her body.  This did not frighten her, it had happened before and now she let the process continue, as she drifted within the embrace of love, light, and well-being that surrounded her.  Without knowing how, she knew and felt that the love emanated from her heart, that her heart was the source of an infinite amount of love, and that this love needed to be released back into the universe.  There was no question for Kata on this, for her, it was the absolute truth without question.  She had felt this sensation before and each time it occurred, and it did ever more frequently, she arrived at the same truth and understanding. There could be no doubt about it.  

Perhaps it had been the thoughts of her father that caused the next words to run through the conscious part of her mind, that part which retained the connection to the Earth, to the plane of the living.  As soon as the thought came to her, she understood and saw it plainly.  'The love of the dead can never be lost, that love which we held in our heart when they were living, lives on eternal within us.  The love that we found and expressed through them, joins our own and becomes a greater love, enriched and nourished by them, preserving their soul within ours.  It is true for the living and it is true for the dead.  This is why we can feel those whom we have loved alive within our hearts.  Everything in nature, whether it be tree, plant, rock, bird, butterfly, fish, or barking dog, gives to us love if we are willing to see it and to accept it.  In this way, the more we love and connect with the natural world, the more love we will receive, and the greater the love will we have to give, and thus, will our heart grow ever more.'

Kata was back on the rock, looking out to sea.  She remained there for a few moments longer, letting herself become accustomed once more to her surroundings, feeling the peace and calmness that ran through her veins.  A breeze blew across the water causing ripples to form on its surface, ripples that one day would become mighty waves.  She recalled some words once said to her, 'Nothing living can ever remain still, stillness is the province of death.'  With this thought she stood and knew where she would go.  She looked one last time across the ocean and smiled, then she turned away, and walked towards the village, where she would buy some bread and some mint to make tea, and pay a visit to the Teacher and share these new thoughts.

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A Heart That Withers

This evening, one single thought came into my mind and with that thought, I opened my heart, let whatever was there flow out from within.  My soul released, to reveal my true self.

A Heart That Withers

Time to give up

Walk away

You got me

I get it now

Mirror in the bathroom

There I stand

I laugh

Seriously funny

You could not make it up

Could you?

Did He?

The Big Guy

Make it up

Made it happen

And if he did

Why?

To watch me suffer

See me cry

To wrestle with conflicted

Emotions of the heart

Why?

Better to end it

Leave it be

There on the floor

Where I'll lay

When it's over

Before it began

To save me from this

All this

Misery

Pain

Suffering

And the question

Why me?

For what purpose?

Show me a ray

Hope

Sunlight

My garden withers

Drops of water

But none for the soil

Only my cheek

As another dream

Shatters on the floor

Glass fragments

Take one

Blood on the palm

Cuts the heart

Fly like a bird

Released.

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Spiritual Evolution: The Reason Why We Are Here

This afternoon, I fell into a discussion with one of my students about life, or to be more correct, death.  This is not as morbid as you might at first think, since I'm teaching a Rescue Diver course, and we had been talking about life saving and the effectiveness of providing rescue breathing and chest compressions (CPR).  This conversation took on a whole new meaning, when out of the blue, my student told me something that left me dumbstruck and momentarily speechless.

As we were discussing the steps in responding to a non-breathing diver and how, through the use of rescue breaths and CPR, maintaining the flow of oxygenated blood to the brain is absolutely critical, Charlie told me that he was particularly interested in this point, since he had arrived home one day and walked into his brother's bedroom, where he had discovered him laying dead on the floor.  He was not even twenty years old and his brother had taken his own life. 

Charlie told me that his brother had been good looking, that they came from a middle class upbringing, that they needed for nothing, that he was popular and well liked at school, that he dated many girls.  Essentially, that there was no known reason at all for him to have ended his own life so early and so abruptly.  Charlie surmised that his brother had figured out that there was no point to continuing, since he already had everything, there was nothing left for him.  What goes on in the mind of someone who takes their own life, particularly in these circumstances, is not for me to say.  Each of us has our own demons, it is just that for most of us, those demons remain under control and in check.  I know that for myself only too well.  I told Charlie about a good friend of mine who had died unexpectedly and suddenly a few years ago, and we got to talking about life and death, and the reason why we are here.  I have a theory.  I call it Spiritual Evolution.

Spiritual Evolution.  Let me try to explain what I mean by this term.  Spiritual Evolution is the process of developing the soul.  We each develop our own soul through having experiences, meeting people, going places, attaining knowledge, and feeling emotions.  In fact, everything that we do offers us the chance to grow our soul, to move it forward.  As we do this, so too do we evolve our soul's into something more than they were before.  It is growth, advancement, and change.  I see spiritual evolution as our mission in this life.

Everyone has a voice inside of them - the voice of their heart.  That voice tells you constantly what you should do, what is the right thing for you.  Some of us ignore it and some of us heed it.  I believe that by following that voice, we follow our one true path and by walking that path, we walk in the light.  It is on our true path, basking in our own light, that we truly evolve our soul, giving it the best possible chance to attain its goal, its mission.  Our one true path is our spiritual quest, our mission for this life.

How many times have you stopped suddenly, aware that the situation in which you find yourself has happened before?  This occurs often in life and it is my belief that each time that it does, it is because there is a lesson of fundamental importance and consequence to our spiritual journey, that we need to learn and to assimilate.  If we fail to take the correct course of action, the situation will inevitably come around again and again, until such a time that we make the right choice or take the action that is necessary.  The situation may occur in a different place, with different people, but it will be the same lesson that is being shown to us.  When we make the right choices then we have learned the lesson and we are able to move on.  The learning of the lesson evolves our soul and this situation will no longer repeat itself in the same way again.  Déjà vu works in the same way, only déjà vu is our remembrance of the same situation but not in this particular physical manifestation of ourselves, but in a previous incarnation of our physical aspect on this planet - in another life.

Let's put this all together.  The soul is trying to attain its ultimate state, to reach the point of nirvana - the point at which the release of the soul from the physical body in which it exists occurs.  To do that, the soul must evolve.  As we journey through life, the soul is learning, changing and evolving.  When it reaches a certain point of the evolutionary process, there is no more that it can achieve in this life.  At that point, it is necessary for the soul to be released from the physical body in which it resides and if it has not yet reached its ultimate objective, then it is reborn into a different physical body and the process of evolution continues.  On and on.  Time and again.  Until the evolution is complete.

I came up with this theory because I wanted to explain to myself why it is that some people die early. You see, when my friend died, I did not understand how someone who enjoyed life as fully as he had, was taken away.  It seemed to me that it was too soon.  But perhaps it wasn't.  What if his soul had reached its goal for this particular life?  Now it was free to leave and so it found a way of breaking out of the physical body.  I don't know if the soul of my friend exists again on this planet in a different physical form, or whether he has left and moved on to a different realm, I'll probably never know that.  It does not matter though, since when I look back at his life, I see someone who clearly sucked out all the marrow, and then sucked out some more.

An acquaintance of mine, who worked as a nurse in a hospital for the mentally ill, once told me that she did not believe in fate because she was unable to explain why some innocent people needed to suffer at the hands of tormentors and abusers.  "How could that be their fate?" she had asked me.  Well, perhaps Spiritual Evolution helps to explain this.  Even though in this life, they suffered, in the greater scheme of evolution of the soul, perhaps that was a necessary suffering, so that they could assimilate a lesson.  We only see a small piece of the jigsaw puzzle, one single thread in the great tapestry that is life.  How can we truly know what is going on, what is the whole picture in which we are just one tiny, miniscule part?  We cannot.

Let me clarify one more thing, because I know the question is burning away in the back of your mind.  You're thinking to yourself that surely, with the rapid growth in the population of humans on this planet, there cannot be enough souls to populate all of the new bodies that have been born? Right?  Well, here is what I think.  Spiritual Evolution occurs throughout all of life that exists on this planet.  Every living thing has a soul of some kind.  Some are simple, others are very complex.  Each is at a different state in its evolution.  I also believe that all life on this planet must be in equilibrium, meaning that the sum of all life, must always equate to the same answer.  More humans, means less life forms of other types.  Therefore, the number of souls in existence is also balanced by the number of living bodies.  More simply put: all things are one.

So, perhaps Charlie's brother had accomplished all that was needed in that particular incarnation of his physical being, and it was just his time to depart and move on.  In choosing the manner in which he did, it is entirely possible that he passed on a message to Charlie.  Perhaps this event was needed to alter the destiny of Charlie, to steer him towards where he needed to go for his own spiritual evolution?  Without that event in the life of Charlie, maybe he would not have been sitting with me in Costa Rica, learning to become a Rescue Diver and going beyond to become a dive instructor.  No one really knows.  All I know is that I believe in my theory of Spiritual Evolution and I'm sticking to it.

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Why Tomorrow Just Might Be Too Late

This afternoon I spent approximately thirty five minutes of my life, just hanging on a buoy line with one of my Discover Scuba Diving participants.  Terry had open heart surgery three years ago and is the proud owner of a huge scar that runs down the middle of his chest.  He had a quadruple by-pass at the age of forty three.  He almost died.  As a result of this, he was, and quite understandably so, a little apprehensive about the diving in the ocean.   Terry's partner, Barbara, had taken steps to ensure that Terry was given a medical all clear and signed off by his doctor, before they came to Costa Rica.  Barbara, being an experienced diver, was keen for Terry to try out diving and to experience one of her favourite pastimes.

And so, in the afternoon, after a successful session in the hotel swimming pool, I found myself hanging on the buoy line in the afternoon, as Terry attempted to overcome his anxiety.  We floated at the surface, we chatted, I worked hard to keep his mind occupied so that he would relax and not be overly focused on the water and what was going on.  We descended one foot below the surface of the water and Terry stayed there to breath, but no, it did not feel right for him, so we came back up to the surface.  We tried again.  This time we managed three feet and again, Terry needed to come back up.  Up and down the line we went, making just a little bit of progress each time until we hit our maximum of six feet.  How many aborted attempts did we have?  I lost count.  It did not matter.  Eventually, Terry called it off and decided it was enough for him.

Throughout this time, I had a pretty good idea that after the initial two failed attempts, Terry would not make it.  I could not give up on him though because I knew he wanted to make it, I could see how hard he was trying, how much effort it was costing him.  I've known other instructors who would have had the student out of the water and given up on them after a couple of failed attempts, but I'm not like that.  If I have the opportunity and the time (it is not always one on one tuition and therefore not always possible to give so much time and attention) to work with someone to overcome their difficulties and to succeed, well, by crikey I'll take it.  I know how much I would appreciate someone taking the time with me, if I had a problem I needed to overcome, and all I want to do is to give to that person the same treatment that I would wish to receive.  I don't like giving up on people.  It's one of my characteristics.

This guy had been through hell and come out of it alive.  He had seen death come stalking for him, felt the icy chill as death breathed close to him, and he had escaped death's clutches.  This experience had given Terry a new lease on life, it had opened his eyes to what constituted real living.  For all of his life, his eyes had been blinkered and then, at the age of forty three, they were rather unceremoniously opened.  He was forced to question his life values and in doing so, he changed them.  Terry is lucky.  He survived his operation and has been given a new lease of life, a second chance.  Many of us do not get that.

This is why I say that tomorrow just might be too late.  You never know.  The path leads us where it will.  What lies up ahead is always going to be shrouded in an impenetrable darkness.  It is not for us to try to figure out what lies there, those answers will be revealed when the time is right, when we are ready to receive them.  Until then, it is only necessary to make the most of what you have, or where you are and in what you are doing.  If that does not give you pleasure, if those things are not your heart's desire, then it is time to make a change.  Never live a life of regret.  Regret is wasted energy.  Regret is a useless thought. As Yoda said, you must do or do not.  In other words, if you can make amends for your regret then do it, make the change, fix the problem.  But if you cannot alter what is past, then let it go and move on.  Forgive yourself for the error that you made and tell yourself that next time, I will not make the same mistake.  For believe me, the same situation will come again.

If you were to be told that you have one minute of your life remaining, are you going to look back upon your life and wonder what might have been?  Or are you going to say to yourself, well that was amazing?  Do not wait for life to come to you because it will not.  You must seek life and in doing so, you will find your true self, you will experience miracles, you will unearth the truth, you will unlock the light, and you will discover love.  You will walk your one true path and that is the path of light and love.  That is the path of truth.

Carpe diem.

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