Caller: Swami, I just had this very strange dream. I was floating around in a lucid dream in a strange bedroom. The bed was large and unmade. A large white cat had just curled up beside me. As I floated around the room, I remember thinking how peaceful it all was and how cool it was that I could go anywhere by floating. In the room was a window, and I floated to the window feet first. I went through the window and I started getting scared because I was going feet first into a white light. It was like floating into nothingness. I had the scary thought that if I kept going outside of the room into the white light I would die. So I immediately grabbed onto to the side the window and held on. Did I do the right thing? Should I have let go?
Swami: My friend. Your dream be illustrating a microcosm of our life. We live, one day we die. When we be on death's door step, what do we do in the final moments? Do we cling to life, refusing to let go? Or do we resign ourself to the inevitable fate that awaits. We be seeing this all around, especially in your society with the people who want to live forever like Ray Kurzweil who be taking all the vitamins and trying to extend life. You can be sure that he be hanging on to the window tightly refusing to let go into the light.
Caller: But Swami, I'm afraid of letting go. Should not I try to hold on to life?
Swami: My friend. You may ask yourself: why do I hang on to life so tightly? The atoms which have temporarily coalesced around the water and flesh sac you call yourself will soon be disbursed. It is not a cause of concern. Why do you think you can control your life anyway? Can you really control the nature of the thoughts that come and go across your mind? Can you really cause your heart to start beating if it stops? There is no "you" my friend. Once you understand this, the hand which you think grabs onto the window becomes the river. Relax, my friend. Float down the river of life. Do not be engaging in the futile struggle against the current. Swami's friends the Buddhists they be saying this clinging to life be the root of all de suffering in the world. It is not a cause of concern. Next caller...
Caller2: Guru Fulsheeta, I noticed that when I rode my bike into the 30 mile an hour wind yesterday it felt as if the whole world was against me and I labored with each step into the wind. Then, having reached my destination and consumed my Dragon's Milk Imperial Stout, I found that when I returned on my bike with the wind at my back that there was no wind at all.
Swami: My friend. First I must make this point wondering why you ride into such a wind in the first place. Cannot you take a rickshaw to this place to get your beer and then return without such an effort?
Caller2: But Swami, I must stay in shape.
Swami: My friend I have always wondered why people from your country have this obsession about fitness. Do not the women of your culture like to grab onto your belly? How they be grabbing onto your belly if you look like a scarecrow. I think they be feeling that they need to feed you more.
Caller2: But Swami, why is it that I don't feel the wind at my back like I do when it had blown in my face previously?
Swami: This my friend be a matter of perspective. The wind is the same, only your mind is different. When the winds support us, we take no notice to appreciate them. But they are there. By contrast, when the winds oppose us, it feels like the whole world is against us. This is the fundamental nature of human suffering. We think the winds of time are against us, when really they be like the answers my friend, they be blowing in the wind.
And before I forget, please be sending your tax deductible contributions to the swami at 123 Frogulent Woodland Ave., Springfield, IL 62711
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