No Baggage

Have you ever found yourself in awkward situations?  Sometimes, it can just be a conversation with someone and at other times, it is the whole event that can make you at unease.  Whatever the case is, there are so many lessons to be extracted from all our encounters.

Back in the days, the “old me” was a young one which would react to every matter as being important (not that important at least now).  An example could be going ballistic to the following comment made by a colleague: “I do not know why women carry big bags and then hit everyone with these bags on crowded trains”.  Since I was the only female in that big group, I felt obliged to defend my genre of species.  Now that I look back, it is easy to conclude that everything that a person encounters as part of their experiences are a deliberate set up to teach us lots of lessons.  It is as if someone is setting up the stage for you to perform.  You are the actor and the director will keep telling you to repeat the scene until it is perfected.  Amid all this, the following quote is being imparted to human mind as a reflection:

• If you are irritated by every rub, then how do you expect to be polished. –Rumi

You are free to derive layers and layers of interpretation from it as a way to benefit your spirit.

A couple of years ago, I embarked on a 15 hours road trip with a friend.  When I walked in with my back pack only, this is the comment I received: “Oh I am impressed to see no baggage.”  As if I was going to walk in with my whole wardrobe!  What are you thinking!  Mind you that millennials have no concept of owning things, we share/rent everything including bike, housing and good reads.  Then, I was received with the following comment while discussing the accumulations by human beings: “You know, we can die.”  Now, that got me excited and I felt thrilled as that is reality!  And all this was just the beginning of a memorable adventure and the rest is history and a mystery ?

Last year, I was abducted by two good friends.  They locked me in the back of their car with some yummy snacks and en-route we were for a two-day getaway and a four-hour road trip.  I remember uttering: “I do not have my toothbrush, I am not carrying my hair spray…” Plus, I did not even have my eye-glasses with me.  My abductors assured me that they will share in all the necessary supplies once we get to the destination.  The fact of the matter was that I was only carrying my cell phone half charged, a one-way metro ride, a College ID and $5 in my pocket, nothing more, nothing less.

When I reached the event, after hearing my saga, I was surprised to see how people were at my service ready to lend me their accessories.  Not only did I feel like DiCaprio in the movie Titanic when he mentions something along the lines: “here I am with only $5 in my pocket and dining with you fine folks”, but also, I ended-up like a charity case.  Seriously, I was given a $20 bill as someone was kind enough and wanted to make sure that I catch the bus and get back home to the city safe and sound.  Apparently, my abductors were off to some other ventures from there on and here I was in the middle of nowhere with not enough cash to get back home.

By the grace of an All-Wise One, the Planner and Creator of the universe, I reached back home safe and sound.  When I look back, there are lots of lessons to be extracted from these series of fortunate events.  Here are some major reflections to leave you with:

• Human beings are brought into this guest-house with nothing. As a baby, we do not even have clothes on.  Everything is provided for us including nourishment as we are being pampered and taken care of. However, as we progress in our journey here, we accumulate lots of accessories without thinking that we are just guests in this universe ready to depart soon.
• If I see this universe is a guest-house, then I must have a Host setting up everything for me at every-step of the way. My main concern should be to acknowledge my host and thus establish a relationship with my Host. Otherwise I will go nuts with trying to make sense of things without a Host of this universe.
• Each and every one of us is subject to leaving this guest-house without any of our accumulated material goods (yes, degrees and credentials included). Hence, the question arises:
• What is it that I am to do with everything that I am provided with here as far as my human qualities are concerned?
• My existence must have a meaning and purpose.

What is the meaning and purpose in my existence?  Has this endeavor become a burden in and of itself, trying to figure out the purpose of my existence here?  After all, I am endowed with endless potentialities, what am I to do with them?  Someone please help me solve this mystery!  That is where the Institution of Messengership (or Divine Speech) comes into my life as answers to my very human existential questions.  Check out the notes to this series by clicking here.

We all want to be free in our existence where we do not want to attribute our existence to the universe or anything of the universe.  After all, how can something of this universe (dependent in its existence) provide me with the freedom and security that my human side requires (i.e. free from being enslaved to the universe mentality)?  We are NOT given existence to carry any sort of baggage here.

What is baggage?

A load, a weight that I carry as deeming important.  In the journey, the baggage becomes heavy. All human qualities I find myself with become a heavy baggage when I try to retain them as if they are my property.  Example: We love our mother but the fear of her becoming very old, sick or die is always with us. Do we want any of these to happen to her? No! Can we prevent any of them to happen to her? No. Then, any time we remember the possibility of one of these to happen to her makes us feel sad. Why? Because we cannot prevent any of them to happen. Do we realize this suffering from sadness because of the sense of love that we have?  Yes, we see that the baggage of love causes us to suffer.

So, how are we going to relieve ourselves from the suffering caused by this baggage? 

When we realize that this sense of love is beautiful, whoever gave us this sense must have a purpose. We are expected to realize that this sense of love is to be used to look for the solution to save our beloved ones. How can we save them, for instance, from death? We cannot. We should look for the Source of this sense of love, alas we cannot find it within the universe. This Source of the sense of love must be the One Who Gave Existence to the universe, and to me and to my senses. He must be the Absolute Being as the Source of Existence of Everything. As the Absolute Creator, He must have Absolute Love. He loves His creatures. He loves your mother as well as you.  If you realize that it is not you who will save your mother from going into nonexistence after death, but it is the Absolute One Who will take care of His creatures from going into nonexistence, then you can free yourself from the burden of life or the heavy baggage of the sense of love.  Only He can save them. If you trust your sense of love to Him, then you can relieve yourself from the burden of the sense of love.

Similarly, all the material things that I carry can also become burdensome if I attribute any deity qualities to them sub-consciously.  How do we get out of this dilemma?  What do we do with all our accumulations?  What is it that we can keep and what is it that will benefit us?

When I look back at childhood memories, I question the meaning of the relationships and events.  Where did those moments evaporate?  Yes, those moments spent together with family and friends are all gone.  What kind of set up is this?  I am endowed with so much potentialities that sometimes I do not even know where to begin.  Mostly, I end up day-dreaming about all that I want to do and accomplish.  After all, we can only do as much as we can handle. What is essentially important to one’s existence is the meaning that the baggage (human qualities) point to.  Hence, the question arises:

• What does the meaning in my existence point to?

“Everything shall perish save His countenance.” (Quran, 28:88)