Mandala of Loss 2

Home?

So often since Michael left his body, I find myself asking “where did he go?” If you’ve lost someone that was part of your daily life, you may know what I mean. When I’ve mentioned that to a few friends often they know someone who after losing someone close, asked the same thing. It seems impossible that all that life and presence simply evaporated. Yes, a complete life story beginning to end unfolded, but that surface story isn’t enough. How he lives on in those of us that knew and loved him isn’t a big enough answer. I realize it’s a mystery I won’t penetrate until my consciousness experiences it. And my consciousness itself is a mystery. At odd moments it feels to me like what perceives my experience is exactly the same as when I was six. All that I’ve learned as part of my life story is still a surface narration. The witness within feels the same. The person identified as Susan has learned and aged with the world around her but even as the perceptual portal widens, that doesn’t feel like the whole picture. Ram Dass sees the body as something we use, like a car, but I don’t think of myself as a Honda even though it is likewise my vehicle. Am I really just a person, or as all religions suggest, a spiritual being experiencing a material existence. Underneath the bureaucracy of organized religion every approach has a richness for contemplation regarding the meaning of life and our existence as more than just our current role in time. Over identification with the physical body may underlie many modern afflictions. Each religion offers a lens and language arising from its native culture, though each at core can only point us in the right direction. Inward and beyond the worn out vehicle of our material life is beyond my vision. I can only speculate. With hopeful feeling I hold the image of an all-encompassing consciousness that Ram Dass calls home.