From the mind of Dennis H Ferguson at age 50

Many of us live our lives by accident-stumbling into relationships, wandering into careers, searching for meaning, hoping and praying that we'll get lucky in love, find our fortune, and stay healthy. I spent years like this, living at random, I try to live life on purpose but am still wandering. My education began the first time I asked my Dad a question. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's the House Rules." The "House" is Life, the Tao, the Universe, Reality; the "Rules" are universal laws or guiding principles and even though I read and understand them they still sometimes elude me.

These laws of Spirit belong to each and all of us.  They are found within our own hearts and in the heart of every religion, culture, and moral system.  By generating a profound sense of meaning and connection, they have expanded my perspectives and provided leverage to change the course of my life and yet I still wander.  Are some travelers meant to wander or meander all their lives? How long can the delusions of purpose or perspective be followed before they become meaningless. Do the deluded just give up hope, trapped forever in their circle of comfort and lazy content or do they just fade away letting nature take it's inevitable course? Aye that is the rub or is it? Do all paths lead to the same place? Or  on different time cycles? Do each of us have to experience all the paths only on different time lines? It would be interesting to know if in our total journey we get to be male or female, black or white, hard or soft ? This is the mystery of the duality of life and is at the base of every neurotic dissociation and every psychological problem. If we do something we really enjoy, we spoil it with guilt about what we ought to be doing .To move us out of this painful condition where things oppose each other we must move to the realm of Paradox where we are able to entertain simultaneously two contradictory notions and give them equal dignity. This is the ultimate Tao. Do we always get what we deliver sooner or later? Questions , questions. How many options to explore and how many levels or planes to explore from. In reality what does it take to explore the ultimate options and even more significant on what plane. What is your level ? More questions........ Most don't get by the basics of the first plane. Duh! " What's for dinner? Let's party! Where's the beer?  Hey Man Fuck You!" 

One prepares for a profession, learns the social graces , cultivates a marriage , and improves one's earning capacity....and all these activities create a large shadow. There are elements we had to leave behind, elements that had to be "unchosen" in order to produce a cultured life. By middle age, the cultural process is mostly complete-----and very dry. It is as if we have wrung all the energy out of our character and at this point the energy of the shadow is very great. We are suddenly subject to explosions that have the power to overturn the product we have worked so hard to create. We may break up a marriage, storm out of a job in desperation as we try to to relieve ourselves of this monotony. These are extremely dangerous moments but they can set the stage for dramatic changes. Heaven and skid row are only separated by an act of consciousness. The worn out feeling that most people experience when their profession has reached its apex and there is little more to learn from it can be eased  by taking several years off and then retraining  in an entirely new career or atrophy and die. If the latter do it fast for the longer you take the more those around you will suffer. Ahhhh.!. Again the duality "to die or not to die" Duality :" a choice between two; eg "right vs wrong"  A "dyad" Two person systems are inherently unstable. Anxiety and conflict will not stay contained between two parties for more than a short time before a third party is triangled in. Triangles serve the adaptive function of stabilizing relationships and lowering anxiety when it can no longer be contained between two parties.

Is life a destination or a journey.  How many know what they really want out of life! What do you really seek? Ask the question "Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now and 10 years from now in relationship to what is at hand? If you have family, do you see them----your daughters and sons. And when they have children, what future do you see them in? Most of us don't look towards this as we never think beyond this week, or tomorrow, or next year. We are caught up in today. If you do think about these things then is the answer logical or reasonable?

 In the immediate now who cares..... the answer may surprise even you.  Such are the CHOICES each and everyone of us must face sooner or later. What's more important, form or function?  What's more interesting, function or form? 

Perception is such an individualistic thing !

 We live our lives under it's control and within it's aurora and shadows! It governs every choice we make It hurts, maims, kills and disfigures more human beings than anything else on this planet. 

"We look back through countless millions of years and see the great will to live struggling out of the intertidal slime, struggling from shape to shape and from power to power, crawling and then walking confidently upon the land, struggling generation after generation to master the air, creeping down into the darkness of the deep; we see it turn upon itself in rage and hunger and reshape itself anew, we watch it draw nearer and more akin to us, expanding, elaborating itself, pursuing its relentless inconceivable purpose, until last it reaches us and its being beats through our brain and arteries...

It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all that the human mind has ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening...

Out of our... lineage, minds will spring, that will reach back to us in our littleness to know us better than we know ourselves. A day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this Earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars."

"There comes a time in your life when you realize that if you stand still, you will remain at this point forever. You realize that if you fall and stay down, life will pass you by. Life´s circumstances are not always what you might wish them to be (at the moment). Rather than wondering about or questioning the direction your life has taken, accept the fact that there is a path before you now. Walk your path one step at a time. Keep your head up, and cast your dreams to the stars. Keep your belief in yourself and walk into your new journey. You will find it magnificent, spectacular, and beyond your wildest imaginings.

Hopefully To be contiued

The truth in it All   an artical by Osho