BATTLES

We think

Everybody fights battles. From the moment a person is born, he/she is doomed to a lifelong journey of battles. You cannot escape fighting battles. Knowing God (whatever that means to anybody) or apparently knowing your purpose on earth does not give you a way out of this route ridden with battles. You still have to fight them.

But... Really? Battles? Because what does a battle in life mean?

For example, a man climbs Mount Everest. He says it is such a battle to 'conquer' it. But is he really conquering it? To conquer it would mean that the mountain was against him climbing it, whereas, nothing about the mountain forbids him to to climb. The avalanches, the wind, the frost, they are just being what they are. They are not posing a challenge to the climber. They are not daring him to try and climb it. It is the person who is climbing them that labels them as 'enemies' and 'hurdles'. They are just existing. Humans have a way of making enemies when there is none just because they have to feel better about themselves.

Similarly I think in life, death is not an enemy. Sickness is not an enemy.

I mean, that's saying a lot! I don't really know. Yes, they kill a person. They bring a person down. But are they really enemies? Is death a person? Is sickness a person with motives that goes around looking for you and wanting to harm you?

So is life a battle? I think that life is just what it is. Life doesn't have a motive to bring a person down. It doesn't have a motive. It is you and I that have motives.

Do you think the mountain air and the wind that surrounded Mount Everest felt ashamed on the day that Tenzin Norgay and Edmund Hillary apparently 'conquered' the peak? Do you think they felt conquered? Nah, little fools we are. We think our emotions and our concepts of a victor and a loser are paramount. We think this makes us unique from the rest of all created beings.

I think it makes us more foolish. This idea of the winner and loser is where the idea of superior and inferior humans began.

Battles fought. Battles won. Battles lost. I don't think so. It's just life being life. Being what it is. We need to get used to the knowledge that there's more to understand than questions asked and questions answered, competition on who's better and who's worse, and most importantly that there is nothing about life to 'understand'.