Interpreting Silence

This is where it all started in fifth grade:

"I finished my test and sat in the library while I waited for my brother to finish his. 
It was an exam day. 
I waited for the whole school.
Third to twelfth grade.

I marveled at the silence that surrounded me. 
I waited for the Goddess of Learning to descend and bless the tranquility.
I could almost see a chariot of light descend any moment now.
That moment was not to happen.

What descended was realization.
I realized this silence was not what seers and hermits sought to be enlightened.

This silence did not lift burdens off the mind.
This silence was born of the burdens that young minds bore.

This silence was born of fear.
What fruit could a tree bear that grew from the seed of fear.

There was no amazement of learning.
No joy of achievement.

Only the fear of not performing well enough for expectations.

It was the silence of childhoods silenced in the name of education."

My dad read the unsigned note two years later. 
He showed it to me.
He said I should learn from whoever wrote it.

I told him it was mine.

He went silent.
I tried to interpret his silence.

To this day I do not know if he approved that his child was not someone he couldn't be ashamed of.

I kept interpreting silence per my convenience...

to be continued...

Like Before...

Someone told me a few months back, "You'll go back home and everything will be like before."

Took those words and kept them in my heart.
Worked so hard to see them come true.

Tried. 
Really tried.
And then tried some more.
And every time looked around to see if everything was like before.


Never happened.

How can it ever be if a part of your soul is changed?
If your heart has been touched?
If you have known the change and let it know that you know?

Life happens and we walk away.


Try to walk away...  
But can we?

Every past moment was different.
Every passing moment is changing.
Every moment that will pass will change.

It can never be like before.
However much you say it or want to believe it.

It can never be like before.

Que Importa... What does it Matter?

What's so important?
Is there anything so important?

Ultimately. No.

There comes a moment when the realization dawns that Life is, in fact, just a moment.
A moment in the passing of innumerable more.

The only moment that is real is the present moment.
The moment gone, never retrieved.

The moment coming, becomes present even as we think of it.

No reality except that minuscule iota of time that's Now.
All that we think is Real is merely our Brain telling us it is.

Then what does it matter?
Why get tied down with attachments?
Why get torn down by loss?
Why celebrate or mourn a moment?

The moment is passed.
The next has come.

Let nothing stop you.
Move on.

Love.
Live.

Hermit, Not Ascetic!

Semantics. 
Some would say.
What's the difference?

I say there is.
It took me all my life to realize I am one and not the other.
It took me all my life to realize it is not required to be one in order to be the other.

I am a Hermit.
I like to stay away in general.
Glorified introvert?
I like to say,"I respect personal space. 
Most of all, my own personal space.
I extend that courtesy to the second and third person."

I am not an Ascetic.
I follow my spiritual goals. Tenuously.

I do not deny anything in the process.
I do not deny responsibility.
I do not deny pleasure.
I do not deny myself.

Denial is voluntary ignorance.
How can there be spiritual growth where there is ignorance?
How can someone master something they never experienced?

Spirituality is not about denying that a vice exists. 
It is not about acknowledging a vice to condemn it.

Spirituality is about rising.
It is about acknowledging the vice and then rising above it. 

It is not about turning the other way.
It is not about crossing the street.
It is not about avoiding the temptation altogether.
Spirituality is about learning to stay strong in the face of it.

Hence, I say, I am not an ascetic. 
I can never be while I tread the path of spirituality.
I doubt you when you ask me to take the escapist route of being one.

I stay a hermit. 
Stand on the sidelines and experience by observing.
I am not attached to what I see but I am not closing my eyes.

I see.
I experience.
I learn.
I grow.