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Today's
Quotation:
You know
of the disease in Central Africa called sleeping
sickness.
. . .
There also exists a sleeping sickness of
the soul.
Its most dangerous aspect
is that one is unaware
of
its coming. That is why you have to be careful.
As soon
as you notice the slightest sign of
indifference, the moment
you become aware of the loss of
a certain seriousness,
of longing,
of enthusiasm and zest,
take it as a warning. You should realize your soul
suffers if you live superficially.
Albert Schweitzer
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Today's
Meditation:
Are
you awake? Ask yourself this question very seriously,
and you may be surprised at the answer. Sometimes I
ask myself if I'm truly awake at a given time or in a given
situation, and unfortunately, the answer comes back
negative. Somehow, I fall back into a place of
comfort, a place of passivity, a place in which I miss much
of what goes on in the world around me. It's not that
nice of a place--it's comfortable while I'm there, but I do
miss much of life's wonder while I am there.
Think
of it in contemporary terms: imagine that you're a
passenger in a car or plane traveling through one of the
most beautiful places in the world. With each new
moment, something wonderful and beautiful appears that would
take your breath away, if only you saw it. But you
don't see it, because you're engrossed in the game on your
Gameboy--the same game that you've played at least 100 times
already, but this time you think you may be able to go a
little bit further.
In
the film Harold and Maude, Maude tells Harold "A
lot of people enjoy being dead. But they're not dead,
really--they're just backing away from life." I
believe that this is where the myth of zombies partially
originates--zombies are the walking dead, animated creatures
with no life.
Awareness
of what is around us is extremely important for all of
us. If our eyes and minds aren't open, then we
stagnate, and we all know how stagnant water tastes--it's
not very pleasant at all, and it's potentially deadly.
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