Some people only want to have a good time so that when you need them, they've disappeared. I don't know what these friends are called today; they used to be called fair-weather friends in my day. Unless it's fine weather, they are not interested in helping. I've also heard them called "good time Charlies," always up for a laugh, but they only cry for themselves. Most do not shed tears at all. This is because they have seared their conscience so it hardly bothers them. They are a favorite of the group, the life of the party. They are social and seemingly kind and compassionate, even though they do not know others deeply, because it is easy to fool acquaintances. Even their families see them as sweet and considerate. and they may well be. But when the chips are down and you really need them, if it is an inconvenience, Mr. Nice Guy is running in the opposite direction, for they see other people's problems as none of their own. Unless there is a payoff, their interest wanes and they disappear like a puff of smoke. They are dependable as long as it doesn't require them to change their plans. These types, who only want fair weather, may marry but will emotionally desert their partners. They make promises they do not keep, and it is not long before their attention has wandered to greener pastures.
Does this sound like someone you have known? The difficulty is that they cannot clearly see themselves as they are, as reality is. Like their commitments, they are paper-thin; there is no substance to them. They are shallow, hollow people, full of emptiness. They are like a beautiful house that has no furniture. The outside looks enticing, but the inside is eerily vacant. "Vacant" is perhaps the most apt descriptor: "The lights are on, but nobody's home." If you dare get close to them, you begin to see an obvious lack of intellectual and spiritual depth. Ask them for their opinion, and mostly they do not have a substantial thought in their heads. Vacant and empty-headed. Despite these warning signs, they are so magnetic and friendly that people are drawn to them. How is it that these drifters who go from one romantic relationship to the next get away with leaving a trail of broken hearts in their wake? Because life allows all manner of persons to operate however they will without having to answer for their misdeeds. And this is a hard fact, that the criminals and immoral people "get away with it." On earth they do; all manner of horrible acts, and nobody is the wiser. Or they think they are getting away with it because Earth is not a place for justice. Earth is a planet for creating karma, and unknowingly, this is what they are busy doing. Creating negative karma that will follow them into the afterlife like the shadow you do not see but cannot get rid of. Like your shadow, karma will haunt you, going everywhere you go. But because you do not see it you keep adding to it.
Why am I taking time to discuss fair-weather friends? Because it is easy to be one. At times, everyone has looked the other direction from someone who needed help. You see a beggar, and you look the other way. You see trash on the shoreline and look the other way. You see a mother and her children struggling with the groceries, and you do not give her a helping hand. You see an elder who needs help, but you're in too much of a hurry, or someone is struggling to find a few more cents in their pocket, but you look away. You may do this every day because life is full of such opportunities. You look the other way, and the problem goes away, right? I tell you the truth that when you look away, it suddenly becomes your problem. You may indignantly say, "Their problems are not my own. I've got my own bigger problems," and maybe you have. But when life gives you an opportunity like this—yes, I said "opportunity"—do not squander it. These very moments when nobody seems to be looking are what matters most to eternity. For in the midst of your own struggles you have been given a chance to step outside of your own myopic world. You are like a fish caught in the net of Samsara—caught in the wheel. A fish caught in a wheel. What wheel, you ask? Samsara is the wheel of birth and death. The wheel is reincarnation. In its grip, you can hardly see anything else. Only your needs matter. much like the fair-weather friend who will leave you high and dry. Are you so different from them, or aren't you similar? You both look away. The only difference between you is that occasionally you will lend a helping hand. Narcisists will help, but only when guilted into it. I am guilting you right now! I am reminding you of the most universal but unrecognized fact: that you answer not only to your present life, but you are also responsible for every problem and need that exists anywhere. On every planet, in every galaxy in this ever-expanding cosmos, you are being asked to care, to be a caretaker for all of it. For all the beings and even nature, you are responsible, as a parent is responsible for the misdeeds of its child. "What a ridiculous, ludicrous idea," you may be thinking. "How can one person among billions and billions of people be responsible for the entire cosmos?"
On the Other Side, you will be able to see that you are not who you took yourself to be. I am not Frida anymore, though I once was. Frida had her chance. The mask I wore, known as 'the great painter,' was tossed aside the moment I stepped out of my body. Then I became a cosmic citizen again, my true identity. You are reading this book in part because it was attached to my name. You may have seen my picture and thought, "I like this unibrowed artist; she was a good egg. I will read what she has to say." While in truth Frida does not exist anymore. I am not she. I am a spirit formally known as Frida. Do you understand? I am saying your identity—the collection of things, behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes that you are—is only good for this life. Then you expire! When your expiration date is up, you drop the identity; you outgrow it. The strangest thing about death is that as soon as you step out of that heavy, cumbersome weight that was attached to your spirit, you cannot recall who you were on earth. You may know what your vocation was: "Oh yes...I was a painter," but even that which characterized you so strongly will be drifting away until it will seem comical that you thought of yourself in such confining terms. It is like saying, "Who am I? I am the color blue" because you liked that color. Such a minuscule description cannot contain you, and cannot accurately characterize you because you were the sum total of many likes and dislikes, many talents, many beliefs, and many behaviors. For me to say, "I am Frida" now makes me laugh. I might as well answer by saying, "My consciousness is as big as an ant." I am no longer Frida the artist, the family member, the ex-wife, or the revolutionary. That very well-meaning Frida lived for a blip of time on the cosmos' clock and calendar, and is no more. You immortalized her, but I cannot recognize her as me anymore. For now I am a citizen of the cosmos. Even that description, which seems big to you, Frida the cosmonaut, is funny to me. I tell you, humans are so pathetically myopic it makes me laugh. Everything about her died when I did. What you celebrate is your own idea, your own conceptualization of her. The real her—the me that once was her—is so gigantic as compared to the Frida you have memorialized. This truth, that you belong not to yourself but to the cosmos, is why you are responsible for everyone and everything in it. Because you are a part of the fabric of life as a whole. It is like this: Do you say, "That piece of cloth is part of my shirt," or don't you say, "This is my shirt"? You point to the whole garment when referring to it. Likewise, I cannot point to my life as Frida and say, "This is Frida." Instead of being one measly life, I am and always was part of it all. I am the me who lived thousands of lives before I called myself Frida, and I have lived on the outside of the physical body in the afterlife as a cosmonaught. My earthly identity was but a tiny dot, a dash in time like the dash of a gravestone: From date of birth to date of death. That Frida was nothing more than a dash on a gravestone.
Being this great entity that you really are, you are not the you that you see in the mirror, nor the dead body you will leave behind. For you cannot die; that is a lie. You may have had a heart attack; your spirit may have been jolted out of your body in any number of ways, but who you are is not a matter for debate. You are a cosmic citizen, and that is a fact that cannot be changed. Belonging to all and everything, you are free. Free of that body. Free from any thought that once possessed you. A free being who is liberated and emancipated. Free to do, go, and be anything you long to. You are not bound—you are free! You are unattached to your body, your family, or your work. Being any of these trifling concepts is binding, and so you are not any of them. Isn't this liberating? Say aloud: "I am not bound—I am free!" Repeat it with conviction.
Therefore, given this truth, you are no more bound to any identity that you have taken on, as a butterfly is not bound to the cocoon. If a butterfly refused to leave the cocoon it would perish there. It must exit the dark confines so it can spread its wings and fly. Your current identity is so fragile and so tiny as to be laughable. You are not you anymore than I am that one-time painter named Frida. It is a fairytale. It was a once-tragic story that you keep replaying over and over: "Poor unibrowed Frida; look how she suffered. Look how brave she was." "Ha! That was not bravery; that was survival. She struggled to survive for 40-odd years and then she laid down the old musty cocoon and left! "Poor Frida, what a terrible existence she had!" And it is true, at the time it was terrible. But now I can scarse recall that blip on eternity's clock. It was like one second which ticked away. Goodbye and good riddance to the shell, I have not missdf you. Because I still have me.
I will tell you a funny or strange thing about eternity. Here we have no need to call one another by a name such as "Harry" or "Sally." I already know who you are, totally and completely. It is like me saying to my mother, "What did you say your name was?" I know her so well, I do not have to ask that. Here, you are known to everyone but not for what you did, or your name. All is known to all. When I meet another soul I do not shake their hand and introduce myself as Frida (peels of laughter). Oh what foolishness to be a human, to stick out your hand in a greeting. It is really very comical when you stop to think about such worldly customs. You stick out your arm and grab a stranger's hand and squeeze it, pumping it back and forth (more laughter). What a crazy thing to do! On the Other Side, all such customs and greetings are archaic. You might as wll put them in a museum. "Hello, I am Frida" (laughter). Who thought that up? "When you meet a stranger, do something intimate, like grab their hand and squeeze it" (laughing). We laugh so much here at all the comedics of earth. It seems so ridiculously unnecessary now, foolish even. But then, it was necessary, wasn't it? We have dispensed with all he foolishness; such a waste of time.
Because of this instantaneous familiarity, you are known everywhere to everyone, and known as the cosmic form of you. I suppose if you had to introduce yourself here you could say, "Hello, I am the soul formally known as Frida when I lived on earth. You may now call me Cosmic Form of Frida" (laughter). But that is a bit cumbersome, isnt it? When we meet, no introductions are necessary and would only muddy the already clear situation. Here, it is two souls meeting who know each other in totality. Interestingly, when you meet a new soul, you might pick up that they were once this or that, and once famous. But rather than be impressed or intimidated, you could care less. If I were to say, "I used to be Frida Kahlo, the great Mexican painter," you would stare at me and think I need a tuneup, because those things, identities or identifications, are superflous and tiresome. They are unnecessary and thus, sound stupid. Nobody is impressed with me here. They could care less who I used to be. It is like reading your resume to them: you would not do it because they hold it in thier hands!
The point is: you are not a collection of attributes. You are not your so-called personality. You are a soul who is everrlasting and invincible, which needs no justification or introduction. You are a living piece of God in this world, and so is everybody else. When a living piece of God is in distress, when God neerds help, are you really going to turn away? I dare you to. Next time someone needs a helpng hand, remember-this is not a personality. This is not an identity like "mother" or "beggar." This is a peice of God struggling. You are tied to it, and it to you. because you are one. You are exactly the same. You are two parts of the same whole. Turning your back on them is to turn your back on yourself. So, the next time that you see you struggling, know God is struggling, and reach out. Don't be a fairweather friend.
With Love,
Frida