Be in the world, but not of it

Being in the world.

As manifested, we humans come into the world with physical needs and desires. We come, forgetting home, feeling alone, having to survive. And so the travails of the world fall upon us like so many thieves. We hoard, we fuss and fight.

And thus we struggle. There is no path that we discern. In darkness we travel on. We stumble, fall, and pick ourselves up, again and again. Tired and weary, we see that things might be better a different way.

We don't know how we got here, or why we are here. We search the stars, wondering if we might be star dust, lost here without our light. And then, perhaps, we start to see another way.

But not of it.

Some still small voice keeps telling us that things are not as they seem. It tells us to look at our troubles in a different way. Only a change of perspective will free us from this woe. With this, our only hope, we accept that this is a pathless land.

When we begin to acknowledge that helping our neighbor, and treating them as ourself, makes things easier. And then we wonder why this works.

A little light comes in, and though there is no path, the light does show us one step at a time. So we learn to be here now, moment by moment, trusting something, we know not what.

And if we persist, and open to this truth, our neighbor becomes ourself, and we are not alone. And then, in time, with letting go, and with letting be, the whole thing opens to a new light, a new world. And we are One. We are now "in the world, but not of it."