Life In Balance

He looked at me as if he had known me for a thousand years. Comrades in life, the passage of time through light. There are so many choices, agreements made in another place and time, sometimes these agreements can seeming lock us into a path, committed to those that agree to share our karma or not. As I watch him, my teacher in his process of living. In the early morning with his family bathing with the cold water collected in a barrel from the rains, bucket by bucket showering his family and friends. One at a time taking turns they in community prepare for the day ahead. A day full of hard work at the same time collecting their basic needs and creating what they need from that which is at their finger tips. There is no choice, in this life, his life you use what you can and you use it carefully no waste, no want for that that is not there for you. I stand on the balcony watching the sunrise and listening to the cantor connect with his God our God for there can not be more than one this is nature there either is or there is not, I believe in everything and so for this at least my life is simple. His song fills my heart and I feel on top of the world. I have come back to the place of ego, as I stand watch and listen, I am speaking to America using the newest technology and I am spending as much in one minute as my teacher who looks to me, at me, with such peace and knowing, may make in 6 hours of hard labor. Is there something wrong here or is it all in the order of the universal plan. I stand on the balcony of the grand palace and speak half way around the world my tool is to my teacher magic. As foreign as a mirror to a cave man and yet he smiles and baths in the morning light his children playing in the mud and laughing his wife so full of love I can feel it surround even me. No judgment no pain only life in balance. Beyond our basic needs what is there happiness? I have seen happiness in the darkest of places on the faces of those we or I might judge and question how can this be, this man has no cell phone, how can he be happy. The same man looks at me and questions; look at him 5 in the morning and already he has stress on his face, 500$$ cell phone a balcony high up in the palace, food for a village and champagne for a army, freedom to go and freedom to come from where to where. Where does he go and what does he do there that he does not do here. Eat, sleep, love, dream, laugh cry look into the eyes of his children? I think not. I remember looking into the eyes of my children and I can tell you it was much to long ago and has not been nearly enough in entirety to satisfy my soul. My teacher will never have this pain, in many ways I am envious of him for the most part in that he is not envious of me.
Life in the balance his, mine, both.

And so what now. I have too many choice and yet I have none imprisoned by my own castle walls. To some this can sound so spoiled and self absorbed. Even I feel heavy with my own drama. The innocence of youth lost as with my Italian lessons I am gaining clarity of all that I do not know and all that I do. The knowledge of ignorance is knowledge of the most painful kind. The complicated mind and the simple mind both powerful and both necessary. I have read that the combination of the too is the elegant mind. The path of least resistance no drama no questions the path clearly defined. I long for just one moment of clarity a moment of no option. This could be why I push myself to the point of disaster in so many areas of my life. Drug addiction, skiing, business, love, in all of these experiences I have taken myself to the point that should I not fully surrender and commit I would crash and burn. This is not elegant but only my clumsy attempt at experiencing the freedom of the non- option, without the grace of elegance.

I am now at a crossroad and must make the hardest decisions of my life. I feel
unprepared and naïve. I do not have the luxury of security nor the security of home and family. I have never felt more alone in my life, I suspect that this is because there is so much at stake. My foundation is gone I can no longer rely on being able to rebuild anew.
The confidence of which, fading with my youth.
I look to my teacher the heart of the simple man and I listen to the cantor sing and I ask myself do they even know what a handbag is, I do. Yours, hers, theirs, what difference does it make, now no difference at all. In this I find the beginning of a new peace, the power of the known, is the foundation of creation. Awareness is freedom, freedom is not easy it just is.