Photo by Saketh Garuda on Unsplash
It’s been a very confronting week for many of us. An obviously Jewish student was targeted and murdered inside his school and the media ignored it. The police are trying to write it off as a random crime, when it seems pretty certain to have been a hate crime.
Watching in real time as chaos and acute danger descends on Afghanistan, threatening the lives of millions of innocent people. The political lives of our elected leaders seem to take precedence over the literal lives of so many. Add to it the dark ominous skies we’ve been experiencing this week, caused by fires in our virtual backyard. We know people who have evacuated (as I’m sure you do too) and friends of friends whose properties were completely burned down. Not to mention all the Covid news, along with the by-now expected acrimony. It all adds up to a deeply unsettling feeling of uncertainty. Is there any institution that can be trusted? Is there anywhere that we can feel safe? While this is a somewhat global view, it's often reflected in our personal lives too. And when the people and things that we’ve relied on let us down, it can have ripple effects that are hard to overcome. The reality is that it’s time we realize that it’s a “false world”. The motivation behind so much of daily life is twisted by personal benefit and convenience, and not guided by principle or immutable values. Coming to this realization can be very uneasy at first (to say the least) but in reality it can lead to a much more liberated existence. Our priorities must be guided by our connection to our “Higher Power”, not by the expectation of others. Our choices must be determined by timeless values, not timely trends. And our decisions must be guided by what’s right, not by what’s expedient. And when we do, we’ll come to appreciate a whole different dimension of reality, a deeper and more aligned reality: That our world is, in truth, a garden. That’s how it was created to function and that’s its truest state of existence. The more we live our life in tune with that reality, the more that reality crystallizes in our daily experience too. It’s certainly true that initially it takes more effort to live life this way, but the payoff is easily worth the investment. We’ll discover deeper friendships and more meaningful experiences. Our life will be filled with value instead of things and despite the chaos around us, we’ll be able to be confident in our mission. Coming to recognize the “false world”, and it’s deeper “world as G-d’s garden” reality, enables us to build a beautiful, deep and true life. A life that is not easily derailed by events around us; rather, it spreads light, positivity and hope to all with whom we come in contact.
