Birds in a tree

I visited a friend in hospital today. He's still very disoriented & doesn't seem to be any better although he did eat the chicken drum sticks (As a veggie I hope he appreciates this sacrifice of my principles when he's better lol) & potato wedges I took along despite not touching the meal the hospital provided.

He's scared of dying, scared of not being in Africa, scared of the hospital staff (he said his carer was pure evil), scared of God, scared of his sexuality, scared of the medication, scared of being alone, scared of being trapped in the hospital for so long & I'm scared for him (scared for us all sometimes).

I held his hand & tried to reassure him he's in the best place & that he's not going to die & said we would look after him when he's finally released.

I wish life were less cruel. It seems pointless at times but then theres love & beauty & truth to balance the books.

The Buddha says "All life is suffering" & I tend to agree somedays. It's difficult to balance the seemingly randomness of it all with our ideas of destiny, fate & the idea that life has a narrative. It feels like a huge experiment in consciousness but no one told us the rules.

I had a 'peak experience' once, on a bus of all places. I was thinking about humanity, our evolution, the universe and our place in it. Suddenly it was like a jigsaw piece slotting into place & I was let in on the secret & it was the most beautiful thing you could possibly imagine.

Its next to impossible to describe but for a few moments I understood that this is the best of all possible worlds & despite the pain & suffering (they have their place too but it's almost beyond us to see this as we experience them) everything is OK. All things are as they should be & there is a purpose & a grandeur to everything. We are miracles & the world is heaven we just don't have eyes to see. We sleepwalk through most of our time here.

I'm not religious of course but this was the closest I've come to experiencing God (or nirvana) or whatever name we choose to give it.

I have a problem when such experiences become dogma & are hijacked by the church. Not all knowledge is acquired by reason or logic but all knowledge must be subject to it.

I don't believe in praying to a God (if theres a God & he has a plan then surely he already knows what's going to happen, to try to change the mind of a supposedly omnipotent, all seeing, all knowing, all powerful God is just an insult to that God.)

That's not to say that I don't think hope & prayer work (there's evidence that the human mind can influence matter) I just don't think they work if there's a God who already has plans (who are we the question Gods plans?!). It comes down to the idea of free will V destiny but that's for another day.

Anyway, I'm a little emotionally drained but I have hope & at times like this I dust of my vision (even if i cant feel it quite as powerfully as i did at the time) that everything is in its place even if I cant see it right now!

Hope you had a good weekend so far! Enjoy the rest!

"For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go."

- Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam