Dual Identities
As I walked on the beach today, a place where I find spiritual solace, I looked back over my life and thought of the many ways one can view their circumstance. How one can approach and make their day a little bit better. We ALL have that choice on how we’re going to view life, one of our only choices.
We can look at it in any way we want. The outcome is ours, and ours alone – to look at the good or the bad. To see that the grass is greener, the bottle fuller, the good overpowering the evil. Don’t give in to those no gooders who are out there trying to suck out your very soul; wanting you to be in their own miserable state, the place where they reside. It is not easy, but if it were, everybody would be happy and enlightened and enjoying their life every second and minute of the day. It is a struggle time and time again.
Sometimes I feel as if I have the devil by the neck, squeezing tightly and then pushing him away for dear life. Trying to keep the evil from me; from taking over and completely destroying me. Oh, how much easier it was living in the Ashram!
As I’m walking, deep in thought, a large fish jumps straight up into the air right in front of me, several times in happy abandonment. To me it seemed as if he were dancing for the joy of being alive and free. I could feel the cooling water and could also feel the exuberance of the fish as it jumped for joy.
While I continued to walk it made me think of those people who have not had any spiritual training. No yoga or meditation, no Bible study or praise music – how can they make it? How do they survive in this treacherous world without any faith, without a positive commitment?
Can they summon up the power to fight the forces that try to take over one’s life on a daily basis? Do they feel their spirit becoming tired, more let down and trampled on? I have felt this many times in the past years, trying hard to look up as I keep sliding backwards.
At that moment, while walking, I came to realize and understand an important point. A negative person or even a realist might have looked on my dancing fish as a doomed morsel; a shark or a predators next meal. That it was not dancing for joy, but jumping for its own existence, its very own life. The happiness I felt could have been viewed by another as fear, death, or even darkness itself.
So as you see, there are Dual Ways of viewing life — Different Scenarios, Dual Identities. I opt for the positive one, the forgiving one; knowing from experience that when I do, I feel better and good things seem to happen to me.
So try it, let’s switch our views. Quit judging others and quit judging ourselves…