LIFE TWO Reality and All That Jazz
Having accumulated as much as we could both materially and spiritually, we are exhausted. And still the question haunts us: Is this all there is? The answer is still no, but we just can’t muster the energy to buy one more book, attend one more retreat, check out one more guru, or make one more pilgrimage. With a great sigh, we resign ourselves to never waking up, never achieving enlightenment. We lived Life One with the motto “Get it!” We end Life One with the motto “F#ck it!” And when we do, the “it” falls away, and we enter Life Two.
Life Two may be compared to Hinduism’s fourth stage, sannyasa, the stage of renunciation. In Life Two we switch on the penlight and see what is with a new clarity. In Life Two the obstacles are no less, but we can navigate them so much more effectively. We are no longer in opposition to anything but are, rather, in harmony with everything.
It isn’t that we no longer have desires; it’s that we are no longer driven by them, especially the desire to have no more desires. It isn’t that reality suddenly makes sense to us; it’s that making sense no longer makes sense to us.
Life One, Phase One is like Charlie Brown aiming for the football Lucy is holding: you kick and fall and kick and fall, hoping next time she won’t pull the ball away. In Life One, Phase Two, you kick and fall and kick and fall, believing she is teaching you something important by pulling the ball away. In Life Two, you kick and fall and kick and fall for the joy of kicking and falling. RR