Isn't This Enough?

Sunday, July 28, 2013:

Drinking and the use of drugs were to fill a hole…a vacancy that was there when my soul shrank. The fuel of it all was fear. I saw myself as I truly am. I needed help and that help was with me all along. As the full moon rose before me, I spoke out, “Why… why can’t you show yourself to me as you did Saint John of the Cross or Dr. Fessler? Why do I have to be satisfied with hints and feelings? Where is my white-light?”

            I sat on the sandstone boulder above the creek. The sound of the water below and wisp of a breeze wafting through the chaparral punctuated the musty aroma of the earth around me and spoke gently to my heart, “Isn’t this enough?”

From: A Time Ago and Then,

by G.B. Couper

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Isn’t this enough? It usually isn’t until I knife through the delusion: cutting through spiritual materialism. Here I am, diverting my attention from where I am when the subtle beauty of nature is all around me. I want to make up myths about it too. Do I need a bolt from heaven to get my attention? Can’t I take a minute out of my day to sit with it and breathe? Truthfully, I think I distract myself because, deep down inside, I fear death. People are born every minute of every day and then people grow old and pass away. I don’t know why I should fear death because I suspect it would be incredibly boring to live forever. I have diverted myself from the inevitability of death with drugs, alcohol, and every sort of thrill and adventure… skirting death as if to defy it. Alternatively, I have gone to churches and temples to listen to made up things about heaven, hell, or reincarnation, as a balm to give comfort. Maybe somehow I am driven to make sense of this brief turn in the light from the eternity that was there before I was born and will continue in some form after I go.

All of these are acceptable choices as far as I am concerned. Why not? But I suspect something else is going on. In this brief flash of time I can pay attention… use my eyes to see… my ears to hear… my senses to feel… my heart to love… They all give light and purpose beyond anything I can make up or pretend to believe in. Isn’t this enough?

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