438. Letting Go

I am no longer myself. I was, but now I am not. This happens from time to time. I cannot predict when it will happen. Sometimes it happens when I’m walking aimlessly. Sometimes it happens when I’m enjoying a delicious meal. Sometimes it happens when I wake after a restful sleep. I cannot know when it will happen, but it is happening now.

Now, I am other than I was. Of course, I must still be myself and I must still be human. But it is as though I’m living another kind of life. It is a life so at peace and so joyful that it almost doesn’t belong to this world. When I’m like this, I can see that the usual life is not the true life. The true life would be this feeling of peace and joy spread over a lifetime.

The true life does not yet exist in full. It is only fleetingly felt in these glimpses, these moments where it breaks through. Or perhaps it is more that I break through into it. I’m not sure the distinction matters. What does matter is that the true life is not inaccessible. I can reach it, but only rarely.

In the ordinary course of things, I’m too absorbed in the tasks and requirements of life to become this other being, to pass from the usual life into this one. It is only when my mind is emptied of everything and I become absorbed in the act of living itself that I arrive here. And even then, only for a few minutes.

Is it possible to remain here longer? This question lingers, but I do not allow it my attention. For I know that it is only by ignoring such questions that the feeling can continue. In the moment of experience, it feels like it could go on forever, like it is too powerful to be stopped.

But something always causes it to stop. That something is me, I know. It is because I eventually remember who I am, the person that I must be in the usual life. To create and sustain the true life, perhaps I must be willing to let go not just of all that distracts me, but of myself, as well.