Aggregate Information - Longer than a Lifetime
Do you ever wonder about the extras in the story?
The one that was killed as a teenager in the middle ages. Did she live a full life?
The knight later on ... the WWII soldier - did they live a full life?
As life expectancies get older and we place more {maybe?} value on the meaning of life- are we coming back to follow these destinies started hundreds, thousands of years ago? Is the thread of life longer than a lifetime? Is the awareness - the ascending - part of a long process of becoming one with the universe? And if that's true - why don't we remember the wisdom learned in past lives?
Often we turn to religion to help answer these questions.
But what if all religions were saying different versions of the same thing?
In Christianity, maybe the true crime in the story of Adam & Eve is not the pain of childbirth {in my experience, that was the closest to spiritual I've ever been}, but instead the pain of not remembering what we learned each time we come back.
From Buddhism Philosophy:
On ignorance depends karma;
On karma depends consciousness;
On consciousness depend name and form;
On name and form depend the six organs of sense;
On the six organs of sense depends contact;
On contact depends sensation;
On sensation depends desire;
On desire depends attachment;
On attachment depends existence;
On existence depends birth;
On birth depend old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair.
Organized religions have traditionally been responsible for keeping the records of the times. Writing down the wisdom learned so that it wasn't lost to time. But what if our greatest asset wasn't the belief in any one narrative, but the ability to see the aggregate?
That is the path that I am choosing to follow. That there is truth - and value - in every recounting. And, perhaps my own story is longer than one consciousness. How does that shift the shame and the hurt? Is it all mine? Or, maybe, by working on clearing whatever comes up with love and witness, we clear it for others.
