Thursday, February 09, 2006

Start the Countdown and Drop the Ball

Today is my New Years.

Many different cultures interpret New Years differently, assigning different years or days or calendars.

Why not have my own?

And it's today....

All of those other cultures have reasons for interpreting their respective New Years Days. So do I.

On February 8, 1995, I went into Miriam Hospital in Providence, RI for an operation to remove a tumor. Regardless of this procedure, the commonly held belief was that I wouldn't live past my seventeenth year. I always start thinking about it maybe a week or so before the date passes by on the calendar. I don't throw a party when it passes, I don't even apply an ink mark to the dated page on my desk. I sit and think and remember what changed my entire outlook on life.

Everyone seems to think that "young people" have this complex--that we perceive ourselves as invincible. Maybe that is true to an extent. I never did. Maybe that's why I always felt so old.

From: The Chandogya Upanishad VI, xiii, 1-3

The father said: "Place this salt in water and then come to me in the morning."

The son did as he was told.

The father said to him: "My son, bring me the salt which you placed in the water last night."

Looking for it, the son did not find it, for it was completely dissolved.

The father said: "My son, take a sip of water from the surface. How is it?
"It is salt."
"Take a sip from the middle. How is it?"
"It is salt."
"Take a sip from the bottom. How is it?"
"It is salt."
"Throw it away and come to me."

The son did what he was told, saying: "The salt was there all the time."

Then the father said: "Here, also, my dear, in this body, verily, you do not perceive Sat (Being); but it is indeed there."

Ginger snaps, anyone?

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