What We May Be

I have a story in my mind, and it goes like this: In an unsupported refugee settlement somewhere in the world, a hungry man sees a scrap of food that has fallen from someone's bag onto the ground, unbeknown to them. A group of three hungry children see the food scrap at the same time, as does a woman standing nearby. The man and children all go for the food scrap at once, and the man gets to it first and thrusts it into his mouth.

The woman, viewing the scene, calls to the children, "Come here. I have no food myself, but I will find you some food." The man notices the woman for the first time, and perceives judgment in her gaze due to his own inner guilt. He remarks to the woman, "You think you are better than me, but you will die, and I will live."

The woman reflects on the man's comment for a moment, then responds, "What will live?"

The man replies, "I will live."

The woman, "But who are you?"

The man looks on in confusion, sensing there is something important in what the woman is saying to him, but not understanding her.

The woman answers the man's confused look, "Only the worst in who you are will live on. Maybe better that it should die, but then again, maybe not. I will live or I will die, but I will do so as who I choose to be. Perhaps in this world it is usually the worst in us that lives and the best in us that dies. Perhaps this is the hell and it is death that is the release. I don't know. I only know that I choose not to take food from the mouths of hungry children."

By this time a small crowd of people had gathered and begun listening, drawn by the drama promised by the intensity of the hungry man's attention to the speaking woman, and the confident peace of her stance, though they had not seen the original act that began the interaction. Upon hearing that the debate was about whether it was right to survive at any cost, even taking food ahead of needy children, the crowd reacted.

As the woman turned to leave, a man standing nearby said, "You will not die. You will share my bread with me."

The woman responded, "I do not need any bread. I have found that I can survive on one meal every other day, and I ate yesterday. But these children are hungry and need food now. Will you share your bread with them?"

The man walked over to the children, broke the bread into three pieces, then handed on to each child. The woman was moved to tears, "Thank you. I wanted to feed them but had no food to give them. Now they are fed because of you. You are a kind man, and may you be blessed because of your generosity."

Another man standing near said, "I still want to see you fed too. I understand you ate yesterday, but tomorrow you may not find food. Here, have some of my bread today, in case tomorrow there is none to be found."

Upon hearing this the entire crowd began to murmur, "No, take some of my bread. I will feed you."

Seeing this, the man who had snatched that first scrap of found food for himself was moved to self-remembrance and began to sob loudly. "This is not who I am. I do not steal food from children. What has become of me?"

The woman's heart was moved deeply by the man's sorrow, and she went to him and took his face into her hands. "It is all right. You forgot who you are. We all forget sometimes. We forget, and then we remember again. We get to make ourselves anew each time."

The man embraced the woman and continued to sob, as he whispered into her ear, "Thank you for reminding me of who I am."

The entire crowd was moved by what they had witnessed together and someone called out, "Let's celebrate! They may destroy our village, they may empty our fields and our bellies, and we may forget who we are for a time, but we will always lead one another home."

And celebrate they did. Someone brought a single egg their chicken had produced that day, which they had been saving for dinner. Someone else brought some clean water, and another some grains. Between them they made a meal that was large enough to feed them all, and they sang, and they danced, and they laughed into the wee hours of the morning.

In the weeks and months to come, many of those people did in fact die of hunger. It is not known what became of the woman who inspired the feast, or of the children whose parents were not to be found. But the story of the Feast of Remembrance lives on to this day, to reach us and remind us. We are what we choose to be, and whatever choice we made yesterday, we get to choose again today. Let us choose to be the best of who we could be. With our actions, let us choose to contribute our vote that this Earthly existence be the heaven we have sought, one filled with angels of love and compassion, some fallen, some risen, all learning and growing, and forgiving themselves and others along the way.

Spontaneous Freedom: When the Wall Was Brought Down

In 1989 I was a college student majoring in International Relations. I had taken several classes on the politics of Eastern Europe and the general consensus among experts in the field was that change in the Soviet Union would be slow, but was certainly happening. My professors, many leaders in the field who had gained tenure at an Ivy League university, saw a gradual trajectory of change. They predicted that as government wanted more economic power in the world, it would have to grant greater freedoms to the people to stimulate productivity, and that as people tasted minor freedoms they would want more. Politicians would seek to appease them by carefully satisfying that tentative call of the people, but without granting any real freedom that would diminish the power of the state. Being a student, I tended to accept their predictions as likely to be true.

We were just as surprised as anyone else when suddenly one day the newspapers announced that the Berlin wall had just come down. News footage showed joyous people celebrating atop the remnants of what had separated them from the free world. I don’t think there was anyone in the U.S. State department or any political office within East Germany itself that was any less surprised. How is this possible, within a nation in which there was no right to freedom of speech nor freedom of association? How did such a huge group of people dedicated to bringing down the Soviet government manage to rise to such power without being stamped out long before they reached a critical mass? The answer will probably shock and fortify you, as it did me, when a friend told me his friend’s story of how he and a group of meditators served as the final straw that broke the back of communist oppression in E. Berlin one evening in November.


About 7 weeks before the wall came down, a small group of meditation practitioners decided to start a meditation group in one of theirs East Berlin apartment where people would come and sit in silent reflection, envisioning their hopes for their country. That first week about 8 people came. They all found it to be a worthwhile experience, so invited more people to join them the next week. That next week the group more than doubled in size. Each week people would come to sit in silence, meditating together and envisioning East Germany as they believed it could and should be. Each week they brought more people with them to peacefully sit together with hope and faith. After a few weeks the group had grown to be too large for the apartment, so they requested permission to use a public café. That worked for a couple more weeks, but then the group became too large for the café. Eventually they had to get permission to meditate in a public square.

One day, while sitting together in silence in the public square, by now a group numbering into the hundreds, someone stood up and began walking towards the wall. Others stood also and began following. One by one, they each stood and walked towards the wall. As they walked, people they passed silently joined the procession. By the time they reached the wall, which was about 4 kilometers from where they had begun in the square, their numbers had reached the thousands. The people at the front of the procession instructed the guards at the wall to open the gates. They refused. The meditators insisted, “Open the gates.” Overwhelmed by the size of the crowd, the guards decided to call their superiors to report what was happening and request instruction. Were they to open fire and shoot so many people? What options did they have? After explaining the situation fitfully, the instruction came back, “Open the gates.”

The gates were opened, the people flooded through, and piece by piece, they dismantled the wall that had separated their vision of what could and should be from the reality of what was. I share this story with you so that you will know irrefutably that what separates us can never be as powerful as what brings us together. If you wish to find that ecstatic connection to all within your life and unleash its unlimited potential, you must only sit in silence with hope and faith until the time comes to get up and walk into the future you have evoked. Namaste (I bow to the Infinite within you).

Playing the Game of Life

Just as I thought I was winning, I realized again that the game isn't even real. Darn. Why is it I always have to see through the illusion just as I'm getting to the good parts? Why can't the lows be just as transparent?

Anyway, just passing along the reminder in case you're in a low and could benefit from it, but can't see it yourself right now.

This "self" that is thinking happy or sad thoughts that are triggering happy or sad feelings, it isn't a solid thing. It isn't you. It is a constantly fluctuating set of habitual patterns. It is a perspective that colors everything even as it confines it to a space much smaller than the infinity that you truly are.

No matter whether you are currently winning or losing in the game of life, there is nothing truly to be accomplished other moving your pieces around the board. Games can be fun, especially when we are winning. But for the game to be worth playing you have to be a good sport about it and not take it so seriously that when you start losing you throw a fit and threaten to quit. You can't cry just because the game isn't going your way. Well you can, but if you do the game will become less and less enjoyable and your chances of improving your performance will also decrease... not to mention that you won't exactly be a choice partner for the rest of the game.

In this moment I kind of wish the game was real. I wish my accomplishment actually meant something solid and enduring. I wish it was "done" and that I could rest with that forever. But the insatiable ego never rests in anything, so any satisfaction born of ego can only be fleeting. Whether I realize I can't "keep it" because it isn't real to begin with or realize I can't "keep it" because ego is insatiable, either way, I can't hold on to the joy of accomplishment for long. In fact, it is already just another day.

My company did just come out with its first piece of software today though. And I'm really excited about the opportunities for new directions in my life experience that will probably grow out of that. Variety of experience is enjoyable not just to my ego, but also to the infinite "self" that is experiencing through each of us. I'm looking forward to something new. Who will I be this time next year? What square will I land on? Or to mix metaphors a bit, what is on the next page of this script?