Maybe this the meaning of life?

Carol Barnes dies today at the untimely - in these days - age of 63. My mother comments that she died of a broken heart from the loss of her daughter. My God-mother also suffered greatly from the loss of her daughter and she slowly declined. "My muse" too declined from the loss of her greatly loved father, saying that something inside died and according to her sister she was never the same afterwards. Something too died inside me when she died, but unlike the above i instinctively fight and to decline upon the loss of anything is to lose even more: the battle.

Indeed the last girl who I had designs to marry left the country last month - for good. The closing of a final chapter in my life : the end of any aspirations to being "happily married". I now officially have no reason to be alive save for supporting my widowed mother and my sister when she needs a support, and a few friends etc who sometimes like me around. I've no desire for career, possessions, achievements or anything... I am ready to die and at least see "my muse" again.

Its an interesting state of affairs, not in any way unhappy, its just very, very honest. In fact if I could use this gaping honesty which my life now possesses devoid of any compromises or split loyalties I feel I could really find peace and happiness. "what point is there to life?", is a question I have been almost too afraid to ask for all my life: what if there was no answer? what if really it matters in no way at all what we do? why be happy, why be sad? What reason separates the two? Am I the only judge of what is good and bad? simply that I don't like being unhappy makes a life meaningful? after what is written in this blog on self-reference this sounds a very hollow thud! That this life should determine for itself what makes it live rather than die? This vacuity like trying to take a breath in space has no nutrition, no wonder I am afraid of that question!

It is awakening in me however an unbelievable awareness that there is life beyond desire and self, beyond the "I want"; just I am unable to see it at the moment, just catching a hint of its scent in the back of my mind's nostril.

You see I'm still very much of the mind set which states that there is but one motivation in life and that is desire. It is desire of love, friendship, companionship, food, happiness, excitement, contentment etc and driven by this our lives map out - driven almost completely by an unseen navigator. The above mentioned had very strong desires for people: daughters, father or potential partner and each based their life upon that. The corruption of that desire brought their life to a pathetic standstill.

It occurred just now in the shower. The "self" is clearly a vacuum. I cannot see myself, I have searched! i cannot "think" myself, I have searched! I cannot even think how I might think myself, and here I have searched too! The self is always illusive, always just around the next corner... reminding me of my favourite story as a kid after which my father even nicknamed me: Woozle (Pooh goes hunting a Woozle). After searching for some time Pooh finds a set of tracks... the story continues until Owl points out that Pooh has simply joined his own tracks... this is the Self in action!! There is no self to see for it always escapes. Dream we may of what the Woozle looks like, but we can never know because it is "ourself", it is as they say "empty"; existent but hidden at once.

So the ignorant build their lives upon the vacuum of empty self, when blatantly the obviously existing thing is other people. It has been a dull mantra told me by everyone of any religious persuasion that helping others is the path, yet I never got it. Why help others? what if I need help? why don't we help ourselves first then we wouldn't need to help each other? what use is there in giving other people what they want, when we should be teaching them mastery of desires? etc yes it is a dull mantra, because its not quite true.

It is not that we should "help" others, as a doctor might help his patients. It is not about us "doing" anything at all. It is about stepping away from finding the answers within ourself, within the shadows cast by the candle of the world. Watching that shadow we believe we know ourself, but the world moves and then so does the shadow it casts: but we hold on and persuade ourselves it was the shadow that moved. Looking for ourself, we grasp the shadow: something is wrong! (bit of pseudo-haiku there).

I cannot believe how hard this is. How vast the sacrifice, how much we must lose before I hope this transformation can happen. Jesus had to die upon a cross, I only hope there is an easier way.

Really the self is the problem. The slavery of being driven by desires, and the fear of having no other reason to exist. If we stop getting what we want then the suffering, the painful thoughts that plague our minds, the evil that arises drives us into a darkness of cold, painful suffering and we come our running toward the comforting arms of desire again, or some even die! This is the trap. Through that very fearsome darkness i am hoping lies the way out. If not then I go the way of Carol Barnes and wither in the drought.

It is not the life of those we desire, but the life of all others which is the only meaning and life of ourselves.