biting off more than I can chew ?

The waterfall rushed in the background.

He stirred his tea, and looked at me.

“There is a way of stepping back from life,”  he said and looked at me.

“How so ?”

“I pretend that I am not part of the  life I know, that I’m far far away, watching things from a great distance.

I pretend to myself that I’m on ‘the other side’, I have no body, I have I am free, pure spirit.

I look at the colour, the physicality of this world. The ‘realness’ of the stones,”

He hit the stone wall beside him with his palm, “I see the water, the food  and I feel a desire to be part of it all. To be part of that world again.

It’s a deep longing, to dive in again, to go through with the adventure of a physical life and body.

Does that make sense ?”

I just nodded.

How could I tell him?

Better to be quiet.

“...and the adventure calls and calls.... I think about it.... I imagine being there... I play with different places, different times,... and then one day it just feels ‘right’. I know it’s time and I jump in... J ”

“Jump where ?”

“Here, this physical world, the hard ground, the water, the air, that sense of final realness, and yet it isn’t really final – or rather it is, and it isn’t. Both at the same time. “

I smiled at him.

“Come on, doesn’t the world feel like it’s hiding a tremendous, terrible secret ?”

I wanted him to go on talking, so I just shrugged.

“It’s a secret of terrible beauty, the things we see in this world are just the surface, it’s pretending to be one thing, waiting for you to find the key, the way in. The physical world wants you to find it.  It’s really simple, but you have to find it yourself. If someone tells you, you don’t get the benefit, you will just have to do it all again from the beginning.”

“Hmm.... I think I understand,” I told him, glad to be able to confirm his hunch.

I wasn’t allowed to say anything else. If I told him any more, it would only make things more difficult.

So I played the part he needed me to be:“I don’t get it. Why do we come here then ? You say it’s an urge, a desire. But when we are here, we don’t remember and we all just want to go ‘home’ leave behind this world of limitations. We dream of ‘escaping the cycle of death and rebirth, or to put it more bluntly, we just dream of leaving this ‘shithole of imperfection’ for the pure realm of spirit. Almost all religions treat the physical world as lower class, and something to get away from, because it’s impure, imperfect and all that kind of thing.”

He nodded.

“Yes they do.

But what if it’s actually not like that ?

What if the point is to see the true perfection in the here and now physical world ?”

I shook my head. It was kind of fun playing the part.

He went on: “Wait, just play with this idea: What if the whole point is to get beyond the idea of physical life as ‘imperfect’ and somehow lesser ?

I’m not saying this is THE TRUTH I want you to believe, I’m saying, play pretend. Pretend for the next five minutes that there is a way of being in harmony with this imperfect shithole of a world. There is a way of seeing it as perfectly imperfect.

Just take what everyone says and turn it around by 180 degrees.”

I looked at the waterfall. Water birds stood on the lotus leaves and stared into the water.

Then I looked at him again, his expectant face, watching mine.

“I get it,” I said quietly.

He had no idea just how close he was.

“It’s funny isn’t it ? We come here because we want that focus, to drill down into the thing we want to learn, and then, when we’re here, we spend all our time trying to escape again and go back to where we came from.”

He looked at me, as if reading a secret message on my face.

"Are we just scared ?

When I was 18 years old, I had this idea of going on a great adventure.

I left school, left home and hopped on a plane and flew to Denpasar.

We landed and I looked out of the window of the plane, soldiers with guns patrolled the runway.

It smelled weird.

I didn't understand the language.

What the hell had I got myself into ?

I felt scared.

For the next few months I just kept really quiet and followed the other tourists.

Back home, it all seemed like a great idea.

Leave everything, get out, and go on a great adventure.

Once I got there, the reality was a totally different thing.

Took me six months to relax and start to enjoy things.

Is it what what's it's like when we come here into this physical life ?"

"Yep, for most of us".