The Human Condition

War raging. Bodies falling.
Homes collapsing. Bombs dropping.
A heartbeat dying. An ego transgressing.
A child screaming. A mother grieving.
Two fists colliding. A hand stealing.
Nightfall pervading. Darknesses looming.
Fear permeating. Cowardice befalling.
There are a thousand ways one can
come to know evil, ugliness and suffering.

Peace prevailing. Spirits awakening.
Flowers blooming. Seeds growing.
A child smiling. A mother rejoicing.
Two hearts uniting. A hand helping.
The sun rising. Light illuminating.
Hope persisting. Courage remaining.
There are a thousand ways one can
come to know good, beauty and joy.

There is much joy to enjoy,
and much sorrow to endure.
There is much Beauty to embody,
and much Majesty to witness.
There are many gifts to experience,
and many losses to learn from.
Not a day will pass you by
without things remaining relatively the same,
and yet everything is different.
This duality is woven into the fabric
of the universe as if its existence depends on it.

Night and day. Light and dark.
Man and woman. Knowledge and ignorance.
Peace and war. Good and evil.
Beauty and ugliness. Pleasure and pain.
Hope and fear. Joy and sorrow.
Rising and falling. Positive and negative.
Truth and falsehood. Life and death.
Beginning and end. Heaven and Hell.

Sometimes it’s a battle between forces.
Sometimes it’s a dance between polarities.
Sometimes it’s a dynamic between absence and presence.
Sometimes it’s a synthesis of complementary opposites.
Sometimes it’s a coalescing of a duality.
Sometimes it’s two faces revealing the same coin.
But it is all here for a reason, not in vain, not by chance.

I cannot deny my own experience of life,
nor can you deny yours.
We have all experienced joy and sorrow,
pain and pleasure, good and evil
in different degrees, intensities and shades
across the entire spectrum of human emotion.
So what is there to do, when each one of us
holds a single piece of the puzzle of the human condition?
Each piece makes no sense without the whole.
What is there to add, when each one of us
carries secrets revealed to them about the human experience?
A single instrument cannot play a symphony.
The only thing we can do is learn from each other;
to come to know one another.
The only path forward is curiosity
towards each other, not animosity.

Share your piece of the puzzle
and open your hands to accept mine.
Reveal your hidden inner treasure
and open your heart to receive mine.
Teach me how to soothe the unbearable pain
and I will teach you how to have unwavering hope.
Show me my shortcomings and I will allude to yours.
But do it with love, otherwise it will not be sincere.
Do it with care, otherwise it will not be welcome.
Treat me as if you were me and I you,
because in the end we are all one and the same;
a single instance of the Divine Breath
amidst an interplay of Divine Names.