My father is suffering from Dementia and I have watched over the years how he went from the strong-willed man I used to know to a child in an old Man’s body. He now looks at me through uncomprehending eyes. Eyes that told me that he no longer has any connection with the world he is currently in. That everything and everyone is alien to him, even his wife of close to seventy years, with whom he bore nine children.
Every one of us are now strangers in his world. Even his caretaker is unrecognisable to him. It pains me greatly to see a strong man reduced to this. It is a daily reminder of how precious our time is. That living is truly living when we have consciousness.
And yet, so many of us live ‘non-consciously’. We do things without thinking of consequences whether to people, animals or the planet. We hurt for the sake of hurting and we enjoy ourselves at the expense of others.
Almost everyone I met who has achieved some kind of spiritual or any other kind of awakening all ran to the other end of the life continuum. They mostly became vegan or became a yoga teacher or learnt yoga or go to India to live in an ashram or go for an intensive meditation retreat. This brings another question to mind. Does living consciously mean becoming totally spiritually-inclined, vegan, meditative and ‘rejecting’ all material wealth?
I believe that while this may help some get to where they need to get, living consciously simply means learning to question our life purpose and its end. How do we want our tombstone to read? How do we want people to remember us when we have returned to dust? Do we want to leave this planet the way we found it or do we not care what it will become for our great, great, great grandchildren and all their children?
I mourn often for what we are doing to this planet and wonder often how it will look like a hundred years from now. Already, there are animals we have hunted and killed to extinction. When will hunters and killers be satisfied? When will consumers be conscious that what they consume may hurt other living creatures?
It is always interesting for me to note that almost every science fiction movie or novel depicts a future earth ravaged by famine, poverty, war and devastation. I wonder why we are not already looking for solutions to these ‘predictions’? I wonder why so many of us think the future of this planet is bleak?
As witnessed by my father’s decline into mental solitude, life and time are so precious. When do we want to start living consciously? Why not now?
MyMohio 