Making Sense of Living-(Dedicated to Frida Kahlo) by Devi Nina Bingham

 

The biggest mistake that you have made about life is your conception of death. You see it as something separate from life. To you, death is a robber that creeps silently, stealing your most prized possessions. It only takes and never gives. It dresses in black tatters, whispering regret. It comes too soon and leaves without apology. Upon your headstones are inscribed foolish words and a dash where your real life stood. But after life, you will know that the dash was also meaningless, because you never died. Death is only dreadful to the living, or should I say, to those embodied. A soul does not need a shell to be a soul, just as an egg does not need to a shell to be an egg. Death is the cracking of the egg and is a good thing. You cannot enjoy the egg unless the shell is first broken.

When you leave the body, you think of it no more. The joys and sorrows are dumped as you dump your garbage, no longer considered. What you called life becomes a fading memory, like a dream you try and piece back together but cannot. It counts as much as the mist that hangs over the sea which rises and disappears. You see, this life is as important as a forgotten dream because there are so many of them. What is the weight of fog lingering over the road? The road is your soul's journey stretching on as various weather conditions descend and lift, descend and lift. Thousands of weather patterns fall and rise, and while they seem very important, in the sun of it, each life is no weightier than the blink of your eyes.

Therefore, can you not try to make so much sense of it and just live it, experience it? Taste the rain and lift your face to the sunlight? Marvel at the mist and the thunder? Watch the lightening with wonder? Every day does not need to make sense. Look at the natural world. Not much of it makes sense because the creatures are busy living rather than making sense of living. Your mind tells you to figure it all out, but how will you do that, for the weather is always changing. Maybe you were only meant to wonder. Maybe you were only meant to wander. Maybe you are not meant to be God's philosopher and were meant instead to be God's lover. God's lover shares the moment with a sparkle in her eye. You only hear the music and dance. You only find the mystery in life and savor it. For truly, there is no making sense of the weather; it simply is. Life is whatever happens and whatever is given to you to manage, you must manage.

Lastly, stop blaming God for everything or claiming it is God's will that this or that happened. You have absolutely zero inkling as to why things happen as they do. When you speak for God, claiming God loves or hates this or that, what you love or hate, you are blaspheming, because you are speaking for God, and who has the right to speak for God? Can a mortal know divinity? Can a mortal interpret for God? Do not fool yourself or others claiming to know the mind of God. Instead say, "Only God knows." You cannot get into trouble saying that.

When you cannot make sense of living, do not try to. Allow events to flow into your life and to flow undisturbed out of your life. Let all things come and go. Nothing is yours to hang on to. You cannot marry it into staying, you cannot bribe it or buy it into staying. When it is time for it to go, it will. Yours is to let go, this is your only job: to release without resentment. It will take a lifetime to learn this one important lesson. You are not here to make sense of it, but to let go of it, over and again. And when the wind blows in something new, pick it up but realize that one day it will leave, too. This is the rhythm of life: the wind blows in; the wind blows out. You are not meant to comprehend the wind.

How hard is it to be in every moment, not figuring things out, not anticipating the next event so you can be prepared or to soften the blow? It is the most natural thing in the world to follow your heart and not your head. But you have gotten so used to listening to your head. Get back to your heart. Return to that stillness, that softness, that surety. Get back there and try not to leave your heart center. Do not allow your mind to have the last word, for it knows only what it cannot figure out. The heart knows nothing but feels everything. Feel everything and your heart is fully engaged. Drop thinking in favor of experiencing. Risk! The heart will risk while the head hides behind rationalizations. Surprise yourself with how delightful life can be. 

With Love,

Frida