Interconnectedness.

   Knowing that there is nothing that is not part of the whole.

   I had a really great topic planned out for today's entry.  It sounded good, it felt good.  I got up at 3 AM this morning with a really foul belly and now, whatever that marvelous topic was is gone.  Oh well, Sometimes inspiration needs a good plan to get out of the way first.

   I have really been enjoying Siddhartha from Hermann Hesse.  A marvelous read and interesting in that the first half of it focuses on traditional Indian philosophies and the second half seems to seek balance between western thought and eastern tradition.  I like it.

   I tend to be of the same piece of cloth.   Interconnectedness is a teaching of the Dalai Lama and part of traditional Tibetan Buddhism.  The basic principle is that all things are of the same stuff (science tells us this is true) and that there is, in the big picture, no real separation of things.  It takes real humility to consider this teaching.  One must then accept that even the lowliest of things and creatures in creation have equal intrinsic value.  Even thought we may be at the top of the pyramid, spiritually speaking.

   I am not here to convince or persuade.  I am here to get your gears moving and perhaps allow you to, for just a moment, broaden your horizons of perspective.  To consider, that we are very small parts of the enormity of the big picture.  That, even though, immensely small and unimportant in this big picture, we play a very very significant role in the grand scheme of things.  It is the smallness of your being, that can gives us the perspective to see what we are really capable of and can free us from the idea of importance that keeps us from doing it.

   Our bodies are just temporal shells for our beings, our souls if you will.  Just as a temple is built to be a physical representation of a home for a god, so our bodies are a physical representation of our being, a home for us during this temporal existence.  As expressed by the saying that we are spiritual beings have a physical experience, not the other way around.  And just as the temple does not define the god, it just defines what the people who built the temple thought the temple should look like, not to sum up or define in finite details what or who the god is, also our bodies do not define the being within.  It is our temporary home for the duration of our human lives.

   Our beings are not defined by the proper or improper function of our bodies, by their appearance or by their capacity.  A man without legs is no less a seed of the eternal than a child with no speech or someone that might be a classical beauty in every sence.  We are not our bodies, they are the temples we reside in.

   The being within is defined by the fact that we are here.  If we are here in this life, then our life is justified.  Creation / God determined the value is already and placed each one of us here.  If it were not so, we would not be here.  Simple!  Hard to grasp perhaps for some, yet still very simple.  To grasp this now leaves us the freedom to make the most of the time we are granted in this temporal form instead of passing time trying to define or justify something that already is.

   Each and everyone of us have an immeasurable value as compared to what our minds can comprehend in our current "human" state.  This value is present in all of us.  Part of the understanding or the realization that we get from this principle is what gives our lives clarity and joy.  Perspective.  Our responsibility is to recognize it in each individual that we encounter.

   May each of us "see" this value in ourselves and in those we meet today.  May each one of us bare record of this sacred teaching by giving a smile to all as we move among everyone this day.  May we find that significance bares far greater joy and clarity than importance every can.

Peace, clarity and vision be yours this fine day!

Billy B