Dearest soul of my soul, I know I am a very complex individual, but … the things "I know" weren’t obtained without paying a price!

In my youth, I had long, meditative, soulful, searching discourse with Gibran, Whitman, Tennyson, Poe, Plath, Pushkin, Frost, Longfellow, Shakespeare, and Neitsche.

I studied the stars, and began to appreciate the simplistic majesty of creation. The beautiful Heavens thus lit a fire in me that can not be extinguished even by death.

I studied a single drop of water, and began to accept that all knowledge of the oceans was contained therein. Thus I learned that the substance of my life … its’ ebb and flow would intrinsically be borne by each tear and bead of sweat I shed. And more, by the blood of my blood … my children!

I contemplated a single grain of sand, and began to understand that the Earth’s treasure could in abstract ways be reduced to no more than a speck of dirt. Then, I understood how "no man is an island unto himself", as all men are intricately tied and bound one to the other, just as the most beautiful beaches are dependent on each speck of sand. Thus, it became clear that it is not the individual that is of the greatest importance. It is the whole. Each individual will eventually pass away, but the "whole" is eternal … the "whole" remains! In death, therefore, there is no sorrow, for the mass of humanity, the "whole" lives, is vibrant. This gives the individual a purpose! Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!

I breathed the fresh morning air, and found that my life would be divided into compact, insignificant parcels of time by each uninspired breath, and realized that life … intelligent life … truly can not live in a vacuum. Thus I understand and believe that superficial knowledge is an abomination and damns those who succumb to the trappings of it to an unpleasant reality. The knowledge of a grand scale is that obtained not by studious misadventure but rather by the pursuit of the divinity within us. In this way, we as individuals are not merely "thinkers", we become thought!

I meditated upon life’s great mysteries. I studied Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, and Christ, and tried very hard within my intellectual limitation to become one with the universe as I understood it. I accepted the principles of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and taught my body, mind, and soul to be gentle and kind. I disciplined myself to become willing to die for these principles.

I began to believe that life does not expand outward from birth. Rather, it collapses inward towards death. All that our lives will be therefore has already happened at birth because (except in our human mind) time does not exist! We view life as an outward experience because of our childish need to segment and define it, and more, our grossly unsuccessful attempts at understanding our experience of it. Sadly, this hinders our true growth inward (spiritually) and limits us to an understanding only to that which "is" by insisting that we think in terms of time. True existence, true life is surely an experience which must collapse upon itself to renew its’ cycle!

Imagine a drop of rain falling on a pond. Conventional thinking would describe birth as the instant the raindrop strikes the pond and the concentric ripples begin their outward expansion in ever larger circles, until the movement ceases, the ripple fades, and death occurs. This modality of thought is tidy and convenient providing all the elements for "physical" thought … a start, numerous steps along the way, and an end. The flaw in this, however, is that it is convoluted logic.

In reality, the exact opposite has to be true. The point where the raindrop strikes the water (its’ most significant impact) is death, and the outermost (least visible and viable) ripple is birth … and, everything that happens between these two points exists at the creation of BOTH points! The Alpha and Omega … the no beginning and no end … the Yin and the Yang … the I AM and the I AM the everlasting light of the world. Our most profound existence is not that which is seen, but that which is folded (thus ∞) upon itself and has no beginning and no end. The exegesis and ultimate comprehension of this "true reality" is the only reason "to exist". All living things are, after all, a composite of two distinct selves: the physical self and the spiritual self.