"Presence, meaning and oneness..."- by Annie O'Brien

"What is most personal is most universal", Carl Rogers
 
At certain times in life, adversity, challenges, sufferings and sadness overwhelm us all and yet we journey onwards. We continue to hope, endure and most of us pull through - developing a resiliency along the way. We all have our journey to complete. We enter this world alone and with nothing but our soul and we leave it alone. Most importantly we never know when we will depart. That is simply the way it is. Our souls are transformed by birth and again by death.
 
What if in life we viewed every person who has shared a part of our lives as our teacher and a reflection of ourselves? What if we viewed ourselves as a teacher to those who cross our paths also. Recognising oneness daily and mindfully. Some journey with us briefly and others travel with us for most of our way. Some lessons are brief and others take longer. Some are painful, others are miraculous and joyous. Some visit us in cycles until we really “get the hang of them” presenting us with lots of challenge. And onwards we go.
 
 “...the heart of thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall,
not an intersection is there anywhere in nature,
but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men,
as the water of the globe is all one sea, and truly seen, its tide is one.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
The funny thing about life is that even though we pause for breath from time to time and we turn inwards, even when we think we are just existing in body, our mind keeps turning just like the globe on which we exist. Our thoughts keep floating and meandering through our mind. We think when we are awake and we dream in sleep. Thoughts never die. They evolve and give birth to more thoughts.
 
"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." Khalil Gibran
 
As human beings we continually break the mould of who we thought we were yesterday - today. I believe It’s a millisecond by millisecond process. We are all human butterflies - emerging from chrysalis after chrysalis into eternity.
 
“And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others” - Marianne Williamson
 
You see I have a story to tell you… You have a story to tell me… Really we are the same. Human beings are far more alike than different. Humanity is what makes us that way. Why don’t we sit a while… And simply be who we are…In this moment… Pondering the concept of oneness is integral to my outlook….Gandhi said "There is more to life than increasing its speed." Just think of what you might miss out on if you don‘t savour it moment by moment?

Life is imbued with meaning when we seek it. Miracles are an everyday occurrence. Sometimes we see, sometimes we don’t. Still they occur. Nothing ever remains stagnant, the world is constantly turning on its axis and we turn too upon the earth suspended in time and space…

“Man’s search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that so effectively helps one to survive even the worse conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life.”, Viktor Frankl

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