Gazing in the Mirror

April 14 - All Things Must Pass Away

All things must pass, none
of life's dreams can last;
So I must be on my way,
and face another day.
~ George Harrison

That which we call personality
is the instrument through which
Spirit operates ... Spirit is never
bound by the form It takes.
~ Ernest Holmes

I have become aware of a subtle shift of attention in my life. I have realized that I have passed over that peak of vitality in adulthood and relentlessly decline comes upon me. It's not that this troubles me. Yesterday evening George Harrison's song All Things Must Pass caught my attention. At first I was thinking that it was because of my recent study of Verse 23 of the Tao Te Ching. A woman I am acquainted with that was going through fertility treatments at the same time that I was came to me for spiritual insights and suggestions regarding her economic challenges. We had previously shared a Spiritual Mind Treatment for our mutual success during that time that we were trying to conceive children. I was clear that I did not want twins and she did want twins. We both had our desire fulfilled – I had a single male child and she had twin girls. Because of that shared experience she comes to me from time to time for help with some difficulty in her life.

So it was that she came to me recently. At the time, she had been going through a 5 year long period of economic difficulties. Many people have had such difficulties since 2008. So it was that I assisted her in crafting a perspective that might leave her open and receptive to opportunities through which she might change her circumstances. Finally she found employment that was not perfect but a paying job. Then her husband lost his employment and the current reality was that she wasn't happy and didn't feel secure in her own employment. At the same time that she was describing these concerns with me, in my own business life shared with my husband, we had been feeling the squeeze of declining funds along with fewer potential sales inquiries to reassure us of new orders for our products. So while was I assisting my friend to be more optimistic about her future, because energy flows where attention goes, I was helping both us to be open to financial support. I prefer not having to even think about financial supply but from time-to-time it seems to need that direct attention from me. And it has been my consistent experience that when I do that the flow always begins to come our way again and definite relief arrives in our circumstances.

There are concerns that the United States of America has entered its own natural decline. This happened to Rome, this happened to Great Britain and there are indications that our decline as a country could result from the greedy accumulation of wealth by a tiny few referred to as the 1% at the expense of the majority of citizens, the 99%. So extreme is this disparity that there seems no reversing or balancing of it possible. Tax day which would normally be April 15th has been delayed this 2020 year due to the pandemic, I was aware when I wrote this essay quite a few years ago, that corporations were sitting on 1.7 trillion in cash and that 83 of those corporations paid no income tax. I am aware that it probably does remain true that at least 4,000 wealthy Americans have their wealth hidden away in tax havens and therefore pay no tax either. And our two houses of congress appear to remain too much at odds. Future expectations are that it is the elderly, the poor and the very young as well as the middle class who will be expected to bear the full brunt of the costs of the current economic contraction, and the rich will hardly blink. These are not the values of democracy and a better quality of life that so many US citizens have fought in the major World Wars to sustain continues to elude us.

So my own thoughts have been turning for some time towards death and decline. The changing of the old guard that I began to notice long ago now (it seems) continues. Just before I wrote this an elderly neighbor and a local community man who was highly active in political affairs at one time both died. And deaths have continued rather consistently which is actually the normal way of life. The county's historical society that my husband and I were once active in is where we became acquainted with the older citizens just mentioned and that group has gone through a changing of the guard as well. It is not unreasonable that young people care more about making a physical contribution to Life – having children, buying a home, making a difference – than worrying about finding what is "reality" by discovering the illusions of Life. The ongoing evolution of humanity requires them to be focused on such things. As my husband and I age, we are staring down the path towards our own end game and our thoughts become concerned with issues of securing property for our descendants and whatever it is that truly matters, than many young people have any need to look at with so much of their life still ahead of them.

I do believe that finding the core essence of reality is useful at any age. One can save a lot of the time otherwise wasted spinning their wheels. One can see the inequities of Life without giving up on finding an enduring harmony in their own life. The seasons change and offer us a quick understanding of birth, growth, decline and rest. I offered my friend who was anxious about paying the rent and putting food on the table for her family this bit from Verse 23 of the Tao Te Ching – "Thus a whirlwind does not last an entire morning, and a rainstorm does not last an entire day". The similarity with George Harrison's lyrics certainly got my attention yesterday evening – "Sunrise doesn't last all morning, a cloudburst doesn't last all day". Harrison go on to note other aspects of Life on Earth – "Now the darkness only stays at nighttime, in the morning it will fade away. Daylight is good at arriving at the right time, It's not always going to be this grey".

One can take comfort during difficult and challenging times in the truth that all things must pass away. Being focused on the present moment proves itself a helpful coping device allowing us to flow with the passage of time and not remain stuck in our suffering or discomfort. Is there really anything wrong in this moment of now ? Eckhart Tolle asks us to consider. In the exact moment we are living, with no consideration of what happened in the past and no concern about what might (and usually won't) happen in the future, we find that we usually are "all right" just as we are. We are breathing, we probably do have food and clothing and shelter – and even those less fortunate who don't appear to have these things usually do have some source of support for their aliveness. That's how Life works even though change is constant, decline is inevitable and there is a difference between these two. Accepting that all things must pass away can help us to face the inevitable with grace.

~ perspective

Whatever reaches its peak
is certain then to decline and
everything about Life proves
that to us.
I despair at times that there
seems no light at the end of
the economic tunnel, no promise
of better things to come and that
a stagnation has set in that will
continue the decline.
Accepting what is doesn't always
mean that everything will be easy
or happy going forward.
Waking up can mean painful realizations
that our politicians do not have the
overall good for the majority of
people motivating their actions and
that religious leaders attempt to keep
their people subjective.
Truth is that death is inevitable and
if one realizes that there are worse
things than dying they can begin to
live fearlessly in the uncertainty that
has always been the reality of Life.

#aging #change #death #decline #finances #greed #maturity #reality #success #vitality