Saturday, September 3, 2011

Questions greater than ourselves

I went to the bathroom to wash my face after a few long and tedious hours of staying up a bit too late. I look in the mirror, but the image looking back at me is somewhat alien. I am aware of every move I make, wondering if maybe someone else is doing everything and I'm just an observer.

There are a few questions that have troubled me many times before.

Are we identical with our bodies and with our minds? Is there a unity within us or are we a strangely put together puzzle? I often feel that these parts of me are somewhat strange, only brought together by accident and not really fitting. Not fitting to one another and not fitting to my needs.

This might sound odd. But let me continue...

What is the connection between body and spirit (and mind, if you'll accept it)? Why do they need one another? What is this individuality?

I often imagine myself being someone else, living their life. Sometimes I become hyper aware of my own individuality. And that is when I begin to question its purpose.

Why are we who we are? What factors dictate that?

And also, the fundamental questions: who were we before being born and who will we be after we die?

There are beliefs that we are part of a greater spiritual organism (I believe some call it Gaia), sort of like a primordial soup. We get out of the soup, live our lives and return to the soup and enrich it with the new flavours of our experience.

Could this hold any truth? What sort of beings are we in reality? What is the purpose of our lives?

I guess we will only find out after we die. I hope... It would be really dreadful if we didn't.

6 comments:

  1. Congratulations for your book getting published :)

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  2. Hello Lavi, just to let you know I popped over. Am having trouble loading up your page again. I'm on satellite broadband, not always the best reception. Will come another time. Hope you get this comment ok. Cheerio for now :D)

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  3. What a lot of probing questions you have, Lavi! I can relate to your feeling of sometimes not fitting together as a whole. I imagine most of us have that sensation at times, but fortunately, I think I mostly feel fully connected. It's one of the unanswerable mysteries of life, who we were before we were born and who or what we'll become when we leave this earthly existence. Since no one has ever returned to tell any of our kind (convincingly, that is!) it remains a mystery to us all and the best anyone can do is surmise, either from a religious perspective or from a scientfic reference point. Either way, no one answer satisfies us all! I do believe life might be a lot simpler were we to have some clarity on all of these questions :) Since we don't I find it best to adopt a far less probing and dissecting view and try to live each day, simply seeing and appreciating all of the beautiful things I know I will miss when I'm no longer here!

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  4. Such wonderful questions you ask here. Universal questions that are much more important I think that any answers.

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  5. I used to wonder at those same sort of questions when younger. Now I'm older, I must have given up wondering I guess - I just accept and find delight in what each day brings :D)

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  6. I agree, Susan, it's healthier that way. I'm just complicating my life a bit lately :D

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