November 16, 2006
Unity
Ever since I was a child, I’ve been questioning life, people, and society. I remember often pestered my mom with questions as to why people do the things they do, why things happen, how much control we have over our own lives, and what would happen if certain events never happened. Specifically, I remember one occasion when I was seven years old: I was sitting quietly (which was quite abnormal for me at that age), when suddenly I perked up and asked my mom, “Do things happen ‘cause they’re supposed to? [sic]” At first my mom looked at me with a puzzled look on her face, so I continued: “If I accidently drop a glass and break it, was it my fault? Or would have broken eventually?” In all honesty, I don’t even remember what my mom responded with, but ever since, I have always been perplexed with ideas concerning determinism versus freewill, how much control over our own lives—both daily activities and the distant future—is in our own hands versus the idea that some greater power, divine or not, has predetermined our eventual fates. Although I am still utterly undecided and may never take one side or the other, I’ve come to believe that things really do happen for a reason. Through every event, hardship, joyous occasion, relationship, and random occurrence, we learn something, whether we realize it or not. In retrospect, everything suddenly becomes clear, and reasons for events are suddenly understood. Think about it: if you’re going through a hardship, it’s painful and frustrating throughout, you curse the world and yourself, but once you reach the light at the end of the tunnel, you always learn something about yourself or the world, and are always stronger. Like Eric noted, some of the most seemingly random occurrences often end up unlocking a door to an opportunity or just somehow fit into your life and make sense later. I guess what I’m saying through all this rambling is that “you—and all other conscious beings as such—are all in all. Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole…” (Shrodinger, Bump 918).
As I conveyed in my P1 paper on Vedic architecture, I believe that every
organism, leaf, rock, person, occurrence, emotion, and everything else in the
world are somehow connected at a deep sympathetic level that none of us can consciously
appreciate. As Alan Watts recognized, “Parts are fictions of language…parts
exists only for the purposes of figuring and describing…”;
thus, everything is connected in the grand scheme (
end
of the tunnel, I’m confidant that unity will prevail and I will “live in
fragments no longer” (Forster, Bump 910).