Lion Spirit

On National Geographic today a large lion family was filmed enduring a severe drought. It rained six months ago. Hunting was difficult because of hot conditions and lack of cover. There was a cub, named junior by the film crew, badly injured resulting from a run in with buffalo. His pelvis was broken leaving his back legs inoperable. He dragged his broken body trying his best to keep up with his family. His brothers tried to assist but didn’t know what to do.

I saw this little spirit, so new to a wonderful and dangerous world wanting so badly to experience everything, wanting to play with his brothers, wanting affection from mother and aunts, but that strong spirit isn’t enough is it? When a body is broken there is nothing but the end. How hard to reconcile. When I watched him trying so hard to lift his body over a small embankment, not giving up, pulling with all his might, and making it up. Yet he could never overcome. While I watched I watched my emotions. I cried a bit feeling for this young spirit. I felt the emotion of unfairness, injustice, no mercy, no redemption, sorrow, defeat. The cliche this is life makes one think there is no fairness. Of course his spirit goes on into a new form. Maybe his new fate is to have a long happy life.

I have come to recognize that life isn’t about the individual or the species. It isn’t about what we do. It isn’t about what we think. It isn’t about what we feel. I may want to believe that. That life is about what I perceive, what I think, taste, hear, etc. But I think life is a result of a force, a creative force I call God. In man there is will. Will to kill, to die, to fly, to live with insects, to constantly move upstream, to be carried by currents. If ego controls will, life will be ugly. Always chasing any paltry reward society can offer. If heart controls will, then life will be wondrous.

I think there is an invisible current carrying us all towards higher consciousness. This current is consciousness itself. The nature of consciousness is expansion. We are dew drops riding the ocean. But does individual consciousness affect the whole? Is greater consciousness aware of individual suffering? How about suffering of six million?

Is it a mistake to wonder about ones purpose? To me it is clear ones purpose isn’t to satisfy ego wants. It is to remove all the facades created by mind. What is there but emptiness? Not the emptiness of loneliness but the emptiness of eternity. Beauty and vastness and mystery all right there inaccessible by even acute senses. How to access the current which runs through me right now? How to release into it? How to say goodbye to everything? How to let it take you away from things, language, conflict, and everything primate. Take me Lord. I am ready.