How marvelous: to be alive!

Religion, spirituality, mysticism, philosophy, theology – all this stuff can be pretty damn complicated. So many beliefs, thoughts, concepts, dogmas, imaginings, speculations.

I've enjoyed throwing myself into this complex stew, and have even contributed to thickening it through some books, my Church of the Churchless musings, and countless conversations.

But more and more, the essence of my attitude toward the big questions of life is…less and less.

By which I mean: one intuitive direct experience is coming to overshadow all of the other religio-spiritual contents of my psyche.

It feels much more real and true than these other meanderings of my mind, which tend to be second-hand or hypothetical in nature.

I'm alive! And I won't always be. How marvelous!

Nine words. A whole lot of meaning.

To me, at least. If you haven't experienced the sensation I'm talking about – on a gut, not a thought, level – then what I'm saying may elicit a "Huh?" rather than a "Yes!"

It happens to me frequently. Usually a couple of times a day intensely; otherwise it's sort of background music to my life, a feeling that's always there but not always consciously attended to.

Yesterday it happened again in my Tai Chi class. Listening to the instructor make some point, about the sword form, I believe, the room and everyone in it came into extra-sharp existential focus.

This is happening, right now. I'm alive and able to be a part of it. Someday I'll be dead. How precious is this moment!

That sentiment sounds a bit trite and Hallmark card'ish expressed in words. The feeling itself was wordless. It was an ah…, a big breath of clear and present reality sucked into my psyche.

To my mind (and I don't have any other one to work with), this is the most authentic "spiritual" sensation I've ever had. I put that word in quotation marks, because the feeling really doesn't have anything to do with other-worldliness or non-materiality.

I guess it's somewhat akin to the thisness or thatness of Buddhism. But I don't know. I'm not a Buddhist. And it feels universal, not something attached to any particular creed.

Here each of us is, alive. It's absolutely astounding, the most marvelous thing. Fourteen billion years ago the universe came into being. It'll ramble on for many tens of billions of years more.

And I'm able to live for a miniscule span of time (in comparison to the cosmos' longevity) in the midst of all this. Experiencing my experience. Conscious of my consciousness. Aware of my awareness.

I readily admit that mostly I sleepwalk through my day, doing what I need to do, lacking the ah… feeling that washes over me like a cosmic tsunami when the seawall of mundaneness is breached for a moment.

Yet when that wonder is present, it's wonderful – making any other form of religiosity or spirituality seem dry as dust.

Comments

[Manjit]

YES! Wonderful, yes!

Nice post.

[Rain]

Yes, that's the essence of it for me also. At one time I did wrestle with the big questions, perhaps I will again, but the biggest mystery of all is that I am here, that I feel, that life exists at all. Live the moment because it is all we have or ever can have.

[tAo]

Yes indeed, now you're talkin Rain. Right on.

But just know that if you keep saying things like "Live the moment because it is all we have or ever can have", then you'll begin to sound rather much like me, and then someone will probabaly begin think that either you and I are conspiring, or worse that we are the same person.

But yeah, keep on living the moment, because it really is all we have or ever will have.

[tAo]

PS: I forgot to praise Brian's offering...

Great post Brian! Thanks.

[Edward]

It is interesting to me that the experience that nails you to the spot includes the predictive that you will die.

Of course that is true, but for me that would be a mental construct, which is like the difference between seeing a face and hearing a name. The face is riveting, the name is referential.

My daily life will bring some moment like the one you describe. But contra Rain and tAo, I do not have a present. I can give you what happened, and predict what will, I can't give you now. I guess I am not that guy.

[elizabeth w]

Oh yes, being alive in this present moment is an extraordinary feeling; the wonder; the mystery; the fragility of the human being; soft organs working harmoniously with each other; a skeletal frame; arteries of rivers of red liquid; the brain atop it all, a stunningly amazing configuration. Who/what could have designed it?
Living in the present moment because that's all we have I find - to my mind - a little bit of a delusion. This fantastical feeling "I am alive now" is it seems to me to be constructed from information/data collected over decades of existence on this earth with this wealthy accumulation of knowledge being the trigger/mechanism bringing about this joyous feeling. What I am trying to say (and not very well) is, it is thought that has created it together with a state of physical wellbeing. There is a space or gap between the "I am alive now" state (which is conscious consciousness) and the essential, intrinsic self that simply is, that "knows" nothing - there is a place within our brain/mind of non-existing, cognisant of no knowledge.
Past, present and future I see as three leaping dots all dancing around each other with impossibility of staying still on one, each dependent upon the other. Living in this ecstatic present moment is surely completely contingent upon many factors all cohesed suitably together to bring about the delusion. Well you can say what does it matter, it seems real to me. But then subtract physical comfort, warm clothing, heated homes, well-fed bellies, survive in the bush eating roots, alone, would one be saying how marvellous it is to be alive - if so would that be a delusion?
Are there not other states of consciousness where this feeling we are discussing would have no ground? I think what I am trying to say is that this supreme feeling of awe of our existence is sort of, kind of a primal emotional response and does not reside simultaneously with the certain promise of eventual death ... unless thought is brought to bear.
Elizabeth W