What is real never changes

 

Have you ever walked past a mirror and thought, "That is not me. I am more than what I see with my eyes."  I do this quite often these days. I used to think I had one finite life, and that I was the accumulation of only what my physical senses perceived in this one life. But there is so  much more to me than this.

I am not my brown eyes, my brown hair, my body shape, my shyness, the texture of my voice, my remembered experiences. I am not female only, caucasion, a person with strong runner's legs and determination. I don't fit into a neat box, I cannot be labelled, and I am infinitely more than what my mind and words can communicate.
 

I have this tendency to gravitate towards people who look like me or act like me.  I think, "You get me because you remind me of myself."  I suppose that most people do this? But then I remember that I have lived in many cultures, bodies and experiences. So pretty much anyone I meet will "get" me and I will "get" them since you chances are, I've been in their shoes before. It's just that I might not remember with my mind that I was them and am them. But something deep in the cells of my body knows.

So from this point of view, it would be good for me to expand my definition of a potential friend. A friend isn't just someone who's walked in my shoes in this particular lifetime. I'm intested in getting to know anyone who has walked in my shoes in other lifetimes. Rubbing shoulders with people who are quite unlike me is like befriending a version of myself from my past or future. How surreal! Interacting with any human on this planet is a cosmic chance to get to know your very own self and your very own spirit from infinite angles.
 

I was on a walk the other day. I passed by this dad walking with his five or six year old daughter who was skipping. I waved hello and felt this out of the blue bond with this man I didn't even know. I was thinking something along the lines of, "I've been a father before. I've walked in his shoes. There's a lot I know about parenting from practical experience, but I don't even remember it. If I could recall all of it and put my spirit for a few minutes into the body I was in when I was a father, he and I would bond like old buddies." I was imagining my spirit with all it's maturity and wisdom gained over many life times, and I felt again this oneness with this person who just randomly walked past me. I felt so interconnected with him and his daughter that I almost wanted to hug them and invite them over for dinner. And no, I'm not drunk as I write this. And nah, I wasn't during the walk, either. This must be how it feels to be one with everyone.
 

I find it pretty exciting that I'm going to choose another life after this one, as well as many more after that. I'll get to be an infant again. I'll get to experience the safety of my mother's womb again. I'll get to feel again my mother's love when she wraps me tightly in a blanket and rocks me. Yep, I'll feel it again.  I'll be a teenager again, and I'll feel immortal. The world will be my oyster. I'll have my first crush again. I'll experience my first kiss again. I'll fall in love for the first time again. I thought I'd never experience these things as firsts again, but voila! 

Nature symbolizes this process in a nifty way. We go through four seasons a year. We are born, we are teenagers and young adults, we are old in the fall, and we die in the winter. Yet our spirit comes back again and in the spring we are reborn. We don't need to mourn the passing of any season of life because we will experience each again many times over. How amazing it is to be able to experience enough amnesia at each rebirth so that each "first" we encounter is a real first. Except for the foggy deja vu that pops up every now and again as our spirits lift the edge up to our real existence ever so slightly.

Viewing life this way makes aging an inviting process. I think I feel comfortable getting older now. I used to resist it. I want to welcome wrinkly skin and gradually whitening hair. I intend to be one of those people who age gracefully... meaning that I embrace it.  I know aging is part of a cycle and I'll be young again soon enough in the next cycle. I want to accept the aging process, enjoying it as something natural and good instead of covering it up with botox and hair coloring.

I come from a place full of love, life, joy, peace and vitality. That's my real nature. It's just that I've forgotten up until now where I came from and who I am. I'm remembering again now. I have the mysteries of the universe buried inside of me. We all do. I have all wisdom and truth from the beginning of time buried inside of me. When I hear others speaking of these concepts for what I think is the first time, I innately know that it is truth and that  I've known it before in my past.

Sometimes I'm in a hurry to peel back the memories and rediscover in this life everything there is to understand and experience right now, at this instant. Poof. The American way. I want it... now. I want to have arrived already. I'm such a beginner at this. But then I remember that I am perfectly arrived even at the early stage I'm at now. I am complete in this moment, in my imperfections. Everyone is. I can rest knowing that everything I'm experiencing right now is enough, and that I couldn't possibly be doing any better than I am right now. I don't even have to do, be or think anything more than what I am right now. It is effortless. I can relax. We all get there sooner or later. Or rather, we are all there right now. I am there now.
 

I'm in a place that is far more than what I see with my eyes. I'm not who I was in another lifetime. I am all lifetimes and everyone. I am the Universe. The Universe is me. We are all one. I am love.

 

"That [which] is real never changes.”
— Lao Tzu (6th c. BC)