A couple of months ago we were at some local’s land here in Costa Rica, looking for a cow we were thinking of buying. As we were hopping from a dry spot to another on a muddy path between two pastures, Vrindaranya, one of our monks, said how she had been thinking how everything in nature seems very beautiful from a distance but at a closer look is actually very brutal, soaked in death and killing. I remember hearing that when Charles Darwin fully came into terms with the idea of survival of the fittest, he completely lost his interest in the so-called finer things of life, like literature, philosphy and other arts, because he saw life for what it was.
Or at least what it is for the material mind. I see a lot of death here. The dogs fight and disappear, the cows are being cargoed to slaughterhouses in dirty trucks, our floors and window sills get filled with dead bugs in a matter of hours. Life is much more bare and basic here. Less polished. It’s more obvious how life really is a struggle for space, shelter, food and sex. Cities are made for humans, jungles are not. Here, instead of being the kings and queens, humans are a part of a bigger whole where they don’t only eat, they get eaten too.
Why does death feel so bad and cruel, although it’s an inseparable part of life as we know it? I’ve even heard of monkeys and elephants who fast themselves to death after their partner dies. That doesn’t make any sense biologically. I can only conclude in my own mind, that death isn’t really a natural part of existence, because we are eternal and we have an intuitive sense that death doesn’t fit the picture.
My teacher gave a great talk some time ago in which he said that we only die as much as we identify with our present body and psychology. If you identify with your consciousness and not with its external symptoms, there’s no death. The apparent death is just like waking up, and continuing your service from where you left off.
My elementary school teacher used to love to repeat the saying, “Only two things are certain in this world: death and taxes”. I have to disagree. Only taxes are.
I was reading and reflecting on your post about death, taxes, dangers nesting inside this world and how brutal this world actually is, where creatures get eaten so quickly. Uhh ..
But just as a curiosity, even from God’s or Creator’s perspective .. could a God call himself/herself a Creator or a God if he/she was not able to create such a world, where such brutality and death is possible to experience?
From our perspective, such a decision may seem odd, but from the Creator’s perspective … who knows, perhaps this makes perfect sense. What do you think about this? Do you find some explanations to validate Creator’s seemingly odd decision?
Thank you in advance! I love your reflections. Keep them coming, please.
Well, the aspect of Godhead that I’m interested in doesn’t even have anything to do with the material creation. I like that concept. He’s not punishing or rewarding according to our actions, but is completely immersed in pure existence. We just have to get out of this video game and come to that same platform. In one sense I’m not even interested in the whole debate about “how can an all-loving God accommodate suffering?” and so on. We perpetuate our suffering by our desire to enjoy and so our karmic jail sentence is extended again and again.
It is said ,however, that the world is also an aspect of God’s “play” but that’s very hard to understand from a humanistic point of view. Which again is a relief for me because if the absolute would conform to our realtive and limited concepts, how much “larger than life” would he really be?
Thanks for your thoughts!