LIVING THE MYSTERY

You can make your life a question to be answered
And/or a problem to be solved.
I wish you luck;
I tried both, without success.
What is working for me?
Life as a mystery to be lived.

The mind of Man is capable of understanding
Only that which lies below himself on the evolutionary scale.
Well, you may say, since Man is at the top of that tree,
He's capable of understanding everything.
Hmmmm.........
"What if," I ask, "the Evolutionary Scale (man-made, by the way)
Is upside down? Or missing bits Man doesn't know about,
Especially in levels "higher" than himself?
What it there are higher forms of life that, right now,
Are having a good laugh at the arrogance and stupidity
That automatically puts Man himself at the top of a man-devised tree"

I'm reminded of the map or globe of the Earth.
Very familiar.
It was created over time by a bunch of people from the northern hemisphere,
That puts them at the "top",
And antipodean outposts like Australia at the "bottom".
It's an assumption that works OK,
Until you jump out into space,
Where it becomes totally insignificant and, frankly, irrelevant.
I feel similarly about the "evolutionary scale".
I think we're appallingly insular, ignorant and closed-minded
About the universe and our place in it.
I think we're so far up ourselves,
The view is very limited, to say the least.
For example, we go looking "out there" for intelligent life
With a very limited conception of what "intelligent life" might look like.
We assume if its doesn't look at least vaguely human, it can't be clever.
We can't even begin yet to fathom the mysterious intelligence
Of elephants, dolphins, whales or fruit flies,
But we blithely assume that we're somehow better than they are!!
Better at what?
If we can't get a better sense of perspective so close to home,
How on earth can we define or recognise "life"
In the infinite reaches of the cosmos?

We don't know. That's it. ......Period.
And we'll never know anything until we get
That we don't know anything much.

In order to rise above the dogs' breakfast of what we think we know
Into some real Knowing,
We need the courage to live life
With a total YES,
Without asking "Why?".

Behind every one of our beliefs
Lie Doubts.
Behind faith
Lie Suspicions.
Behind every answer
Lie more Questions.
Behind our certainty,
Lies Ignorance
Behind the mystery of What-Is
Lies Wisdom
Accessed through fully experienced experience.
Wisdom, not as a static state,
But as an ongoing process of becoming.

Trust.
Through your doubts, suspicions, questions and false certainties,
Through the Mystery,
Lies True Knowing
Which arises from giving a deep "So be it"
To the paradoxes, contradictions and uncertainties of mystery.

In Mystery is the beginning of Mastery.