Wherever You Go There You Are

"Sometimes I read things that make such perfect sense, that are written with such perfection, that I feel the need to share. Until now, there has been no one to share with, who might understand why I react to what I read, the way I do. I am hoping that among those who read this blog, maybe just maybe, something that I write might resonate within them as well.

One of the first posting I made, concerned the book Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Well after over 2 months I have finally finished reading it. It is a wonderful book, I have enjoyed reading it. I think it will be a book I will come back to time and again, as it carries a message that cannot really be completely absorbed in one sitting. I was particularly impressed with one chapter that I would like to quote in full:

"Wholeness experienced first hand cannot be tyrannical, for it is infinite in its diversity and finds itself mirrored and embedded in each particular, like the Hindu goddess Indra's net. a symbol of the universe, which has jewels at all the vertices, each one capturing the relections of the entire net and so containing the whole. Some would have us worship, uniformly, at the altar of oneness, using the idea of unity rather than an ongoing encounter with it to steamroller-like flatten out all differences. But it is in the unique qualities of this and that, their particular individuality and properties - in their eachness and their suchness, if you will - that all poetry and art, science and life, wonder, grace and richness reside.

All faces resemble each other, yet how easily we see in each uniqueness, individulity, an identity. How deeply we value these differences. The ocean is a whole, but it has countless waves, every one different from all the others; it has currents, each unique, ever-changing; the bottom is a landscape all it own, different everywhere; similarily the shoreline. The atmosphere is whole, but its currents have unique signatures, even though they are just wind. Life on earth is a whole, yet it expresses itself in unique time-bound bodies, microscopic or visible, plant or animal, extinct or living. So there can be no one place to be. There can be no one way to be, no one way to practice, no one way to learn, no one way to love, no one way to grow or to heal, no one way to live, no one way to feel, no one thing to know or be known. The particulars count."

What do you think of what he says?" I whisper.

Are you listening?