I'm reminded of the quote, "Seek the company of those who search for truth, and run like hell from those who've found it!" (don't know the source, sorry) I run a lot these days!
So many people seem certain of the truth they've found while I still love the exploration of questions. On my 'About' page I state that we are on a pilgrimage from the unknown to the unknown. I am aware that this is a personal observation. Yet it instills in me a sense of philosophical and spiritual adventure.
In fact, I'm not sure I want to know 'the' truth. Because after that, where's the adventure?
Good points, Eric! The only thing I would add is that, for those who think there is a truth, it's a bit like a new land. Once you've arrived at the new land, the rest of the adventure is getting to know as much of it as possible, as deeply as possible. :)
It strikes me (as I listen to the Beatles' "Blue Album" and try to stay in 2024) that we have been caught in a vortex our entire lives and will probably never reach the bottom.
Sounds like could be two names for cats - once had a pair of Abyssinians named Jackson and Maureen, have no recollection of why we gave them those names. Other favorite cat names we had were Night and Day (black and cream colored) Max, (short for Maximillian) Cheops, a feral cat who lived in the barn, and Helen, that originated from "hell on wheels."
Ha! Paxton the name of my new great grandson, now 9 months old. We might ask, what’s in a name? I call him Pac Man and he has no idea of those little yellow gremlin icons.
Eckhart Tolle has obviously never spent enough time in swamps. As Zen Master D.T. Suzuki has pointed out, frogs are the most Zen of all animals. Cats are pretenders determined to steal our minds and control Earth.
different Suzuki : ) DT Suzuki was a philosopher and writer, Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) was a Zen priest and teacher. easy to get them mixed up, though.
Thank you for pointing that out, Maia. Sad thing is, as I was writing my response, I had a faint memory that there are two Suzukis, but I ignored it. Tsk tsk 😊
We had a giant brush pile near our home in Cannonsburg. Bunnies lived there. Whenever our cat decided to eat one, the screams seemed like those of the demons of Hell. Eventually, I had to blow the house up. That's when we moved North.
Asking difficult questions is often far more important than finding fixed answers. I admire people who keep changing their mind about what’s important in life. We change, the people around us change, and it’s only rational our answers change with us.
I never thought to question the questions before. That makes good sense considering everything is always changing. It’s comforting to have an answer. But it may be time to ask the universe to send us a sign regarding our current purpose. Then just take it with a grain of salt I love this question because it makes us think instead of just being complacent.
This really resonates with me, Don. I used to stress so much about finding my 'purpose' in life. It felt like this huge, overwhelming burden. But then I realized that I was already living a purposeful life – through my work, my relationships, my hobbies. It wasn't about some grand destiny, but simply about finding things that brought me joy and contributed to the world in some small way. That shift in perspective was incredibly liberating.
That's so wonderful, Alexander, and thank you for sharing that with me. I was the same! So worried about living a meaningful life, and that every moment that I didn't find that meaning was time wasted. If I knew then what I know now—that the meat and marrow is all contained in this one moment, right here, right now.
We’re spiritual beings having a human experience, aren’t we? I remind myself throughout the day “you can be right or you can be free”. We don’t need to know it all to be happy, we can just be. Being has become my favorite part of life.
"Is it necessary to provide such definitive answers to the question of life? Is it wise? Is it true?... And at risk of being contentious: Who are you to say?" That last question makes me laugh out loud, and laughing is a wonderful spiritual practice (whatever your, perhaps, definitive answers are). I tend to think that as humans we make meaning (and, no, this is not a definitive answer:). We can do all sorts of things with this capacity. One is to watch yourself continually travel back and forth between meaning making unknowing/not knowing. I do a lot of this. Sometimes in the midst of my travels, clarity (whatever that is, except that it's distinguishable from everything else by its nature) shows up, and I say, "oh!" Then I go back to my watching.
As an aside, I'm dropping in here in the midst of summer trips that haven't allowed me to be "on" Substack. much. I'm reminded of how happy these interactions make me!
What a wonderful reply!. Thank you for laughing at that statement, because it, and the word "illegitimate," were what made me almost not publish this short essay that I dashed off faster than any other. I don't like to be contentious or definitive! I usually fuss over an essay for a week before publishing it. How surprising to me that it seems to be garnering more attention than any other so far! (My planned essay turned out to not be ready yet, so I grabbed this thought out of my journal and touched it up a bit).
Also, your "back and forth" remark, and your "Oh!" remind me of something I commented on another reply: That even realizing that "the only thing I know is that I don't know," is a shot of knowledge; one that, like any other knowledge, must be held loosely, or, in your terms, "watched."
I think in many ways it comes down to perspective. We’re all looking at the same thing but from a different angle. I personally like the question “Why do I exist”. For me it opens up a wonderful adventurous exploration.
I love both questions and answers. I think the key is not to think that just because I found a good answer that that is the end of the story. It’s kind of like going on an expedition. Wherever you are on that journey in that moment is true. But to think that that’s the end of the story would mean that you would never enjoy the glorious summit. But even the summit isn’t the end it’s just another point in the journey.
I absolutely agree with you, Wayne! In fact, I’ve been nervous about sending the wrong message with this short essay. Dropping the question altogether is only for people who have been asking it for many years. Questions are far more important than answers, and we should keep on asking!
I’m thinking since anything we write and people read will be interpreted by where they’re at in their journey, we always run the risk of being misunderstood. The only remedy is… Not to write, and that would be far worse. Thanks for taking the risk!
Maybe questions are a great place to start on the journey, but as we get deeper into the quest, and more conscious and present, living a life in which we simply let the essence of life manifest through us in a state of being does away with the need to “know“ and we simply bask in the joy that we are alive!
Note: I bet with your better command of English than myself you could do a better job of stating that without such a long run-on sentence!🤣
Are you kidding, Wayne, that was a perfect statement, and I appreciate it! And I appreciate your insight about how each reader is going to interpret from their own experience, and so really you don’t have much control over how your message is received. That helps me to let go a little bit. 🙏💚
I aspire to the constant state of not knowing, but I am undeniably drawn to make sense of things. I think our search for meaning is what makes us human. So I suppose I proceed humbly, telling myself—“I don’t know my full and complete purpose, and yet…I want to understand it, anyway.” Sometimes I want to transcend this human experience so badly…still, there’s lots of much fun to be had if I hold it lightly. Is that the point? I don’t know! (Teeheeehee.)
Fortunately, insights like, “The only thing I know is that I don’t know,“ can give us that same thrill of sudden understanding as any other obtained knowledge. So we still get to indulge our human desire for knowledge! (And then even “not knowing” can become a concept one must let go of lol.)
I'm one of the people who shares exactly the answers to the questions that you made the subject of your article.
Therefore, I want to make the subject clearer from my point of view.
I can understand that you disagree with people who try to share the answers to these kinds of questions.
If I did not have the spiritual knowledge I learned from the books of the spiritists I know now, I would think exactly how you feel and think...
I cannot know about others, but what I share is not my thoughts or the thoughts of the people from whom I share quotes. The information in the excerpts I'm sharing was all obtained in spiritual sessions.
For example, spiritist Bedri Ruhselman is the founder of Neo-Spiritualism, also known as Experimental New-Spiritualism. His last work is the book The Divine Order And The Universe. He did not write this book by himself. He just compiled all the information obtained in these spiritual sessions.
Secondly, Ergün Arıkdal, whose quotes I share a lot, was a metapsychic researcher, magnetizer, operator (hypnotist), medium, writer, and the longest-serving president of the Turkish Metapsychic Research and Scientific Research Association.
You may wonder how these sessions are conducted. I do, too, since I've never been in one of them. But I have listened to the recordings of some. And my uncle, who passed away, was one of those who conducted such sessions when he was young.
I have a PhD in mathematics, in other words, I am a very logical person and was very skeptical about these subjects before. But over the years, the conversations I had with my uncle and the books I've read erased all my skepticism.
Meanwhile, I met a friend who is a psychologist via another friend. He is a Reiki Master at the same time. We, nearly 10 people who are eager to find the answers to the questions that you mentioned in your post, started to gather to read the book A Course in Miracles in the house of that psychologist friend. My psychologist friend had started reading this book before, and he was reading and explaining it to us. He was also very good at interpreting the book, I Ching. Later, he started to explain to us the meaning of the hexagrams.
Our gatherings lasted for years. Although I was very skeptical about spiritual subjects, all of these and all the people in my life helped me a lot to see that the truth may be very different from what we were taught.
Since 2000, I have been interested in these topics, considering everything from the perspective of a scientist due to my profession as well. I even read the Quran many times to see if there are verses related to reincarnation, and I found many, like some other people, related to it.
Since I have such a background, if you are interested, I’d like to recommend you give the book "The Divine Order and The Universe" a chance with peace of mind. Later, you are still free to think as you do now...
You may not find the books that I've read by Turkish spiritists, but I think you can find the books by Allan Kardec, the father of Spiritism, Léon Denis, and Paul Brunton if you want to give a chance to these spiritists as well.
If you want, you can also watch the movie Kardec (2019).
Of course, we cannot know the whole truth, and we cannot know all the answers. These spiritists do not make such a claim, but at least we can understand why we are here with the communiques obtained from the higher realms.
I think whoever is curious has the right to learn and share this knowledge.
In the Quran, there is a verse that I think has a very deep meaning:
“Everyone acts in their own way. But your Lord knows best whose way is rightly guided."
Every one of us is unique. If you want to live your life without asking these questions and trying to find the answers, I respect you from the bottom of my heart. But as much as I respect you, I also respect the people who are asking these questions and living their lives according to the answers they have found.
Well, there's nothing wrong with a search and a respect for truth.
My essay is very short (for once) and I hope it doesn't misrepresent me. It's only after a lifetime of questioning that I feel I can drop the questions and just relax. Questions are important! Answers, however, should never be clung to!
As I mentioned above, I respect your way of looking at life.
But you have asked some questions.
You asked if it was necessary to provide such definitive answers to the question of life.
For the spiritists I know, the answer is “yes”, and they have some definite answers to the question of why we are here, and I'm sharing them on Substack.
You asked if it was wise.
These spiritists thought that it was wise, and I agree with them. But there are people who do not find this wise, and I respect them too.
You asked if the answer was true.
The spiritual sessions are not easy to conduct. These spiritists also say this and add that some charlatans misuse these topics. But until now, the answers of the spiritists whose names I've mentioned above have been true, and I can tell you that for a very long time, I've been experiencing the spiritual facts in my life that they have conveyed to us.
And you have written, "Who are you to say?" (Which is actually the more important question.)
I thought this question needed an answer immediately and wanted to answer it.
You have also written, "This is, I think, an illegitimate and unanswerable question, constructed by minds."
And I wanted to say that the spiritists have an answer, and these are not constructed by minds.
Sorry, but in my opinion, your post seems to be one-sided with missing evaluations. You do not even have any idea about the works of these spiritists, who have conveyed very valuable spiritual communiques to us, do you? Because otherwise, you would not even think of writing an essay like this one.
Or maybe, if you could have written a bit longer, you would have put your exact thoughts in your post.
Please forgive me, but I knew the answers to the questions you asked in this post, and I’ve tried to answer them as best as I could.
"I don't know" seems like one of the most unlikely phrases to hear these days. It takes a humility, and a willingness to consider, that is difficult for people to embrace never mind display. Your words here are a breath of fresh air, Don.
Love this! So right on and my sentiments exactly. Sometimes I would think there was something wrong with me because I wasn’t questioning things so much. Thank you for supporting the idea that I’m OK just where I am.🙏
I wonder if the human condition is to question and seek answers, specifically to those unanswerable questions. Because, we somehow choose to be so completely uncomfortable in the unknown as if it is a bad thing rather than choosing to be curious and excited about it what could be without any expectations or definitive solutions.
I like the concept of “shrugging it off”
I might be so bold as to suggest that if every time we find ourselves seeking some clarity and answers to questions that seek some kind of “purpose” we physically roll our shoulders in a shrug, as if taking off a backpack, and we can let fall all those needs for answers.
And I just want to make it clear that I don’t mean to imply that we shouldn’t ask questions. It’s the questions that put us in position to receive, not necessarily answers, but insights that take us one step closer to a place of serenity and harmony with the unknown.
Yes, I think we will begin to shrug off such questions as, What is my purpose?, when we begin see that that question is coming from ego, not unity.
Haha, Elizabeth, I would have used that Indigo Girls quote in this essay, but it’s already in my next one, including a link to the video! 😃
(The essay, called “Miracle at Starbucks“ was meant to be posted this week, but it needed a little more simmering, so I dashed this one off in its place)
I'm reminded of the quote, "Seek the company of those who search for truth, and run like hell from those who've found it!" (don't know the source, sorry) I run a lot these days!
So many people seem certain of the truth they've found while I still love the exploration of questions. On my 'About' page I state that we are on a pilgrimage from the unknown to the unknown. I am aware that this is a personal observation. Yet it instills in me a sense of philosophical and spiritual adventure.
In fact, I'm not sure I want to know 'the' truth. Because after that, where's the adventure?
That's a good quote, Eric! I'm with you on that pilgrimage!
Good points, Eric! The only thing I would add is that, for those who think there is a truth, it's a bit like a new land. Once you've arrived at the new land, the rest of the adventure is getting to know as much of it as possible, as deeply as possible. :)
It strikes me (as I listen to the Beatles' "Blue Album" and try to stay in 2024) that we have been caught in a vortex our entire lives and will probably never reach the bottom.
Thanks for this, Don. From where sit, it's why "I AM" is all I need. From there it's all adventure and grace.
Adventure and Grace. There's a good title!
Thanks, Gary. 🙏
Sounds like could be two names for cats - once had a pair of Abyssinians named Jackson and Maureen, have no recollection of why we gave them those names. Other favorite cat names we had were Night and Day (black and cream colored) Max, (short for Maximillian) Cheops, a feral cat who lived in the barn, and Helen, that originated from "hell on wheels."
When I was a kid we had a siamese named Paxton. I think that sounds very distinguished! (I think it might have been a witch’s cat, maybe from TV)
Ha! Paxton the name of my new great grandson, now 9 months old. We might ask, what’s in a name? I call him Pac Man and he has no idea of those little yellow gremlin icons.
Awww 😊
Eckhart Tolle has obviously never spent enough time in swamps. As Zen Master D.T. Suzuki has pointed out, frogs are the most Zen of all animals. Cats are pretenders determined to steal our minds and control Earth.
Haha, yes, I like the frog analogy, too. I've read Suzuki, and keep Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind on my night stand for periodic consultation!
Maggie is certainly doing her part toward world domination. First step: eliminate all baby bunnies. 😬
different Suzuki : ) DT Suzuki was a philosopher and writer, Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) was a Zen priest and teacher. easy to get them mixed up, though.
Thank you for pointing that out, Maia. Sad thing is, as I was writing my response, I had a faint memory that there are two Suzukis, but I ignored it. Tsk tsk 😊
We had a giant brush pile near our home in Cannonsburg. Bunnies lived there. Whenever our cat decided to eat one, the screams seemed like those of the demons of Hell. Eventually, I had to blow the house up. That's when we moved North.
🤣🔥
Asking difficult questions is often far more important than finding fixed answers. I admire people who keep changing their mind about what’s important in life. We change, the people around us change, and it’s only rational our answers change with us.
I agree with you, Claire. I guess what I'm saying here is not to NOT ask questions, but rather to question even the questions!
I never thought to question the questions before. That makes good sense considering everything is always changing. It’s comforting to have an answer. But it may be time to ask the universe to send us a sign regarding our current purpose. Then just take it with a grain of salt I love this question because it makes us think instead of just being complacent.
Great thoughts, Laura! 💚💚
Yes!
This really resonates with me, Don. I used to stress so much about finding my 'purpose' in life. It felt like this huge, overwhelming burden. But then I realized that I was already living a purposeful life – through my work, my relationships, my hobbies. It wasn't about some grand destiny, but simply about finding things that brought me joy and contributed to the world in some small way. That shift in perspective was incredibly liberating.
That's so wonderful, Alexander, and thank you for sharing that with me. I was the same! So worried about living a meaningful life, and that every moment that I didn't find that meaning was time wasted. If I knew then what I know now—that the meat and marrow is all contained in this one moment, right here, right now.
We’re spiritual beings having a human experience, aren’t we? I remind myself throughout the day “you can be right or you can be free”. We don’t need to know it all to be happy, we can just be. Being has become my favorite part of life.
Same here, Danielle! Thanks for being here 😊
Hi Don,
"Is it necessary to provide such definitive answers to the question of life? Is it wise? Is it true?... And at risk of being contentious: Who are you to say?" That last question makes me laugh out loud, and laughing is a wonderful spiritual practice (whatever your, perhaps, definitive answers are). I tend to think that as humans we make meaning (and, no, this is not a definitive answer:). We can do all sorts of things with this capacity. One is to watch yourself continually travel back and forth between meaning making unknowing/not knowing. I do a lot of this. Sometimes in the midst of my travels, clarity (whatever that is, except that it's distinguishable from everything else by its nature) shows up, and I say, "oh!" Then I go back to my watching.
As an aside, I'm dropping in here in the midst of summer trips that haven't allowed me to be "on" Substack. much. I'm reminded of how happy these interactions make me!
What a wonderful reply!. Thank you for laughing at that statement, because it, and the word "illegitimate," were what made me almost not publish this short essay that I dashed off faster than any other. I don't like to be contentious or definitive! I usually fuss over an essay for a week before publishing it. How surprising to me that it seems to be garnering more attention than any other so far! (My planned essay turned out to not be ready yet, so I grabbed this thought out of my journal and touched it up a bit).
Also, your "back and forth" remark, and your "Oh!" remind me of something I commented on another reply: That even realizing that "the only thing I know is that I don't know," is a shot of knowledge; one that, like any other knowledge, must be held loosely, or, in your terms, "watched."
Thanks so much for dropping in, Emily. 💚🩷
So true! Everything must be held loosely (even believing that you need to hold everything loosely - words are pretty inept for this!).
I spend A LOT of time on my essays as well, work and work, edit and edit. And I continue to be surprised at what touches readers.
Nodding my head repeatedly. 💚
😁
I often think about how our more complex cerebral cortex gets us in so much trouble ; )
I admit googling a bit before making this comment, and found this interesting fact, not really related to your point but fun!
"According to Scientific American, a cat’s brain has 1,000 times more “data storage” than an iPad, and operates a million times faster!"
See that, cats aren’t so dumb after all! 🤣
I think in many ways it comes down to perspective. We’re all looking at the same thing but from a different angle. I personally like the question “Why do I exist”. For me it opens up a wonderful adventurous exploration.
I love both questions and answers. I think the key is not to think that just because I found a good answer that that is the end of the story. It’s kind of like going on an expedition. Wherever you are on that journey in that moment is true. But to think that that’s the end of the story would mean that you would never enjoy the glorious summit. But even the summit isn’t the end it’s just another point in the journey.
I absolutely agree with you, Wayne! In fact, I’ve been nervous about sending the wrong message with this short essay. Dropping the question altogether is only for people who have been asking it for many years. Questions are far more important than answers, and we should keep on asking!
I’m thinking since anything we write and people read will be interpreted by where they’re at in their journey, we always run the risk of being misunderstood. The only remedy is… Not to write, and that would be far worse. Thanks for taking the risk!
Maybe questions are a great place to start on the journey, but as we get deeper into the quest, and more conscious and present, living a life in which we simply let the essence of life manifest through us in a state of being does away with the need to “know“ and we simply bask in the joy that we are alive!
Note: I bet with your better command of English than myself you could do a better job of stating that without such a long run-on sentence!🤣
Are you kidding, Wayne, that was a perfect statement, and I appreciate it! And I appreciate your insight about how each reader is going to interpret from their own experience, and so really you don’t have much control over how your message is received. That helps me to let go a little bit. 🙏💚
Thanks Don!
I aspire to the constant state of not knowing, but I am undeniably drawn to make sense of things. I think our search for meaning is what makes us human. So I suppose I proceed humbly, telling myself—“I don’t know my full and complete purpose, and yet…I want to understand it, anyway.” Sometimes I want to transcend this human experience so badly…still, there’s lots of much fun to be had if I hold it lightly. Is that the point? I don’t know! (Teeheeehee.)
Fortunately, insights like, “The only thing I know is that I don’t know,“ can give us that same thrill of sudden understanding as any other obtained knowledge. So we still get to indulge our human desire for knowledge! (And then even “not knowing” can become a concept one must let go of lol.)
Thanks for your comments and thoughts, Isabel! 🙏💚
Indeed. To release the "knowing" is its own kind of knowledge.
Hi.
I'm one of the people who shares exactly the answers to the questions that you made the subject of your article.
Therefore, I want to make the subject clearer from my point of view.
I can understand that you disagree with people who try to share the answers to these kinds of questions.
If I did not have the spiritual knowledge I learned from the books of the spiritists I know now, I would think exactly how you feel and think...
I cannot know about others, but what I share is not my thoughts or the thoughts of the people from whom I share quotes. The information in the excerpts I'm sharing was all obtained in spiritual sessions.
For example, spiritist Bedri Ruhselman is the founder of Neo-Spiritualism, also known as Experimental New-Spiritualism. His last work is the book The Divine Order And The Universe. He did not write this book by himself. He just compiled all the information obtained in these spiritual sessions.
Secondly, Ergün Arıkdal, whose quotes I share a lot, was a metapsychic researcher, magnetizer, operator (hypnotist), medium, writer, and the longest-serving president of the Turkish Metapsychic Research and Scientific Research Association.
You may wonder how these sessions are conducted. I do, too, since I've never been in one of them. But I have listened to the recordings of some. And my uncle, who passed away, was one of those who conducted such sessions when he was young.
I have a PhD in mathematics, in other words, I am a very logical person and was very skeptical about these subjects before. But over the years, the conversations I had with my uncle and the books I've read erased all my skepticism.
Meanwhile, I met a friend who is a psychologist via another friend. He is a Reiki Master at the same time. We, nearly 10 people who are eager to find the answers to the questions that you mentioned in your post, started to gather to read the book A Course in Miracles in the house of that psychologist friend. My psychologist friend had started reading this book before, and he was reading and explaining it to us. He was also very good at interpreting the book, I Ching. Later, he started to explain to us the meaning of the hexagrams.
Our gatherings lasted for years. Although I was very skeptical about spiritual subjects, all of these and all the people in my life helped me a lot to see that the truth may be very different from what we were taught.
Since 2000, I have been interested in these topics, considering everything from the perspective of a scientist due to my profession as well. I even read the Quran many times to see if there are verses related to reincarnation, and I found many, like some other people, related to it.
Since I have such a background, if you are interested, I’d like to recommend you give the book "The Divine Order and The Universe" a chance with peace of mind. Later, you are still free to think as you do now...
You may not find the books that I've read by Turkish spiritists, but I think you can find the books by Allan Kardec, the father of Spiritism, Léon Denis, and Paul Brunton if you want to give a chance to these spiritists as well.
If you want, you can also watch the movie Kardec (2019).
Of course, we cannot know the whole truth, and we cannot know all the answers. These spiritists do not make such a claim, but at least we can understand why we are here with the communiques obtained from the higher realms.
I think whoever is curious has the right to learn and share this knowledge.
In the Quran, there is a verse that I think has a very deep meaning:
“Everyone acts in their own way. But your Lord knows best whose way is rightly guided."
Every one of us is unique. If you want to live your life without asking these questions and trying to find the answers, I respect you from the bottom of my heart. But as much as I respect you, I also respect the people who are asking these questions and living their lives according to the answers they have found.
All the best.
Well, there's nothing wrong with a search and a respect for truth.
My essay is very short (for once) and I hope it doesn't misrepresent me. It's only after a lifetime of questioning that I feel I can drop the questions and just relax. Questions are important! Answers, however, should never be clung to!
As I mentioned above, I respect your way of looking at life.
But you have asked some questions.
You asked if it was necessary to provide such definitive answers to the question of life.
For the spiritists I know, the answer is “yes”, and they have some definite answers to the question of why we are here, and I'm sharing them on Substack.
You asked if it was wise.
These spiritists thought that it was wise, and I agree with them. But there are people who do not find this wise, and I respect them too.
You asked if the answer was true.
The spiritual sessions are not easy to conduct. These spiritists also say this and add that some charlatans misuse these topics. But until now, the answers of the spiritists whose names I've mentioned above have been true, and I can tell you that for a very long time, I've been experiencing the spiritual facts in my life that they have conveyed to us.
And you have written, "Who are you to say?" (Which is actually the more important question.)
I thought this question needed an answer immediately and wanted to answer it.
You have also written, "This is, I think, an illegitimate and unanswerable question, constructed by minds."
And I wanted to say that the spiritists have an answer, and these are not constructed by minds.
Sorry, but in my opinion, your post seems to be one-sided with missing evaluations. You do not even have any idea about the works of these spiritists, who have conveyed very valuable spiritual communiques to us, do you? Because otherwise, you would not even think of writing an essay like this one.
Or maybe, if you could have written a bit longer, you would have put your exact thoughts in your post.
Please forgive me, but I knew the answers to the questions you asked in this post, and I’ve tried to answer them as best as I could.
All the best.
"I don't know" seems like one of the most unlikely phrases to hear these days. It takes a humility, and a willingness to consider, that is difficult for people to embrace never mind display. Your words here are a breath of fresh air, Don.
Thank you so much, Stephanie. That’s very kind of you. 🙏💚
Love this! So right on and my sentiments exactly. Sometimes I would think there was something wrong with me because I wasn’t questioning things so much. Thank you for supporting the idea that I’m OK just where I am.🙏
You are absolutely OK right where you are, Diane. And I thank you! 😊
Maggie is pretty brilliant, eh?!
Beautiful post, Don.
Thanks Holly. Maggie says thank you too! 🙂
I wonder if the human condition is to question and seek answers, specifically to those unanswerable questions. Because, we somehow choose to be so completely uncomfortable in the unknown as if it is a bad thing rather than choosing to be curious and excited about it what could be without any expectations or definitive solutions.
I like the concept of “shrugging it off”
I might be so bold as to suggest that if every time we find ourselves seeking some clarity and answers to questions that seek some kind of “purpose” we physically roll our shoulders in a shrug, as if taking off a backpack, and we can let fall all those needs for answers.
Sure would feel like a lighter weight to live.
Great suggestion, Teri!
And I just want to make it clear that I don’t mean to imply that we shouldn’t ask questions. It’s the questions that put us in position to receive, not necessarily answers, but insights that take us one step closer to a place of serenity and harmony with the unknown.
Yes, I think we will begin to shrug off such questions as, What is my purpose?, when we begin see that that question is coming from ego, not unity.
Agreed. Questions and curiosity are the joys of life. It’s the seeking of answers that cause strife.
Your cat is adorable btw.
yes! as the indigo girls said "The less i seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine."
I posted a piece yesterday about learning to be like the birds. my cat might be my greatest teacher? she's definitely taught me true love.
Haha, Elizabeth, I would have used that Indigo Girls quote in this essay, but it’s already in my next one, including a link to the video! 😃
(The essay, called “Miracle at Starbucks“ was meant to be posted this week, but it needed a little more simmering, so I dashed this one off in its place)
i’m sure i used it in a post a few months ago, but I can’t remember which one now!