I have had a couple of rough weeks by my standards. It started a little while ago when I was sitting in the bathtub (great place for reflection, right?!), when I realized out-of-the-blue that I had to let go. Not sure of what, not sure how, but that it was time to let go in a big way – once again. I have been through a life changing experience a few years back that was a tough one to say the least, and my life did change in a big way as a result of this experience. After seeing my own manipulative and controlling ways that had been my entire life, they began to untangle and eventually fade away, and a new way to be with myself and the world settled in. And I am beginning to see how that is the challenge, the settling in part.

I certainly am not the same person I was for all those years before and know that I am different, but another kind of mental routine has set up shop in me, and that is now catching up with me. First I began to feel ‘stuck’ and uncomfortable in my life, nothing to pin down, nothing in particular, but it was there, in the background, like a shadow, haunting me. A newborn and general life kept me busy and distracted enough to ignore it, until that night in the bathtub. So, I had to let go, but what on earth that meant I had no clue.

Then I began to feel depressed, I got sick and very tired, which intensified those feelings and last week one evening I was home alone with the other love of my life, my daughter, and something strange happened. She was sitting in my lap, eating her dinner, I was smelling her hair and contentedly looking out the window at the trees when I was broadsided by the deepest feeling of sadness I have ever felt in my life; it was as though the entirety of humanity’s dread, torture, pain and suffering was coming at me and through me all at once. I almost lost it, the sheer magnitude of feeling this feeling was almost too much. I barely could hold it together, I did not want the little one to freak out. I felt so distraught and disillusioned about the state of humanity and the level of pain we are experiencing with each other, and with ourselves. I couldn’t believe that we live on this beautiful planet, and the best we can come up with is the current state of affairs. I don’t know why stuff like that happens to me, maybe I am mental, I know for sure that I am making it up in some way, but why on earth do I?

After that night I got worse, save for my wife and daughter I lost my joy, all I began to envision was to remove myself from the world as much as possible and stay away from it, that crazy place full of crazy people, who in the best of circumstances hate each other for different political views, and at worst behave like they do in the IS in the name of a religion. Not a pretty picture. I had lost my faith in humanity and did not want to be part of it anymore. It sucked.

Today is different. A phone call with a dear friend and a video changed it.

The phone call was with a friend who is very dear and close to my heart, and who is much better than me at getting his ideas around similar themes as the ones on my blog out into the world. For the past sixteen years he has been tirelessly and with utter resolve bringing his version of peace into the world. And it is bearing fruit. He has had an HBR article published, was on the radio this week, and will be doing a TED talk soon. I was so happy for him, because he is one of the most kindhearted and smartest people I know. He then asked me how I had been, and I told him the above. He went silent for a moment, told me he understood. Then he tells me that he wakes up almost everyday with a similar feeling about the state of things and knows that he is going to get up and do what he can to help change it. He will not quit. Ever. Trust me, I know the guy. I definitely felt better after hanging up.

Then I saw this video and was blown away by it, because I realized it was showing me the light. I am talking about the light that is in every thing in form on this planet, but is particularly strong and maybe even condensed in human beings. It is the light of being, the light of existence, the light that is on in us, the light that shines through so clearly when people are kind to others without any expectation of return, when a child laughs and looks at you with love, when a dying husband or wife looks in their partner’s eyes with more than just their eyes, when you meet someone and for some reason they are so familiar to you, the light we see when we watch videos about acts of kindness, the light we see in each other when we see beyond the physical, the light that shows us that underneath we are all from the same place. And eventually return to it. The light that erases differences, hatred, judgment, arrogance, and the ability to do harm to another. For every moment we are in its presence, we leave our ego behind and become beings, we are no longer human-have-been’s or human-will-be’s, we are human.

This is waking me up. I don’t know what that means yet, but I do know that I forgot to see or at least look for the light, because it is in everybody at all times, sometimes it’s harder to find than others, but it is there without fail. For a while after my experience I saw it all around and in almost everyone, but I got lost in something else, and so the light was lost too, first around me, and finally I couldn’t see it in myself anymore either. Wow. As I just wrote that, this became clear. So it is time to get up and get going, time to become a light(er) again. First with me, and then, who knows… I still don’t have a clue what I have to let go of, but I will and it will be fine, and I will participate again in my own little way, and if because of my participation one other person will see the light as well, in them and others, that will be enough.

Go look for the light. It is there. It shows itself in the oddest and most unexpected places. And when we see it, we know it, we recognize it, and we feel it, and it feels good. I challenge you to find some light today, and tomorrow and the day after. It will make the world brighter.

Cheers,

Ralf