The Mystery

I recently came across the reflections below. They touched me deeply, and I thought you'd appreciate them too.  They speak to the mystery of what it means to be on this amazing journey we call life.

The excerpts are from a talk given by Adi Da, a brilliant teacher and flawed character, to a group of young people in his ashram many years ago. 

The words that come through him really speak to our sense of what it means to be on this mysterious journey of life.

Perhaps imagine yourself as a child, or a young teenager, listening to this older man in the later stages of his life.  I invite you to consider pondering the message the next time you find yourself on your yoga mat, mediation cushion, watching the clouds, or simply feeling each step as you take a walk.

“Nobody, not mom or dad, or grandmother or grandfather, or big sister or big brother, or teachers or doctors, or soldiers or reverends, or athletes or lawyers, or TV stars or people who are working, or any people who are playing, not even the president, not even a king or queen, not even people who love each other, knows what a single thing is.  

It is a great and wonderful mystery to all of us that anything is, or that we are.  And whether somebody says, I don’t how anything came to be,

or God made everything, they’re simply pointing to the feeling

of a mystery of how everything is.  

But nobody knows what it really is, or how it came to be. 

As long as we go on feeling this mystery, we feel free, and full and happy, and we feel and act free, and full and happy to others.  

This is the secret of being happy from the time you were small until the time you are old.  If you will remember every day to feel the mystery,

and if you remember to feel that you are more than what you look like,

and if you remember to be the mystery itself,

then you will be happy, and all kinds of wonderful happenings will come up for you.  You will feel happy and you will always help and love others, even those who are having trouble feeling happy, and even trying to make you

forget the mystery. 

Some day you may meet someone who’s felt the mystery really strongly for a long time, so that person feels the mystery a lot, and is always happy.  Such a person is the best person to learn from about happiness, and life and love.

I hope you will remember to feel the mystery everyday,

as long as you are awake forever.

The best thing to tell anybody is to remember to feel this. 

I’ve been doing this for a long time, and it is the best and most

important feeling of all.  I’m happy I can tell you this. 

You and I can always remember, at least one other person somewhere is remembering and feeling and loving the mystery right now.” 

In praise of embracing the mystery. 

Jai Bhagwan