I am giving up on reality. I am giving up on logic, but not the way you think. There are lots and lots of minds spinning around this universe making it and all the other universes real, and every thought, every idea affects each other… And then there is only One Mind and One Reality.

Thought is an interesting thing. It makes things real. Some might say it is reality itself. If thought passes away does that make anything less real? Do things really cease? If they do does it really matter?

I just don’t know. Why is knowing important? It is only an act of my personal ego. Why am I important at all?

I don’t need to know. I don’t even need to be me.

There are two worlds running parallel to each other: a world of the physical (of sight, touch, smell, hearing, forces, quantum mechanics, mathematics…) and there is a world of imagination and desire and angels and Divine Sparks and supernal lights, which we do not see and touch but it is no less real. One affects the other. They are like pillars of a temple and we are between them.  We access this world through metaphor – and we don’t always understand the metaphor and we don’t always get it right – but the metaphor has an affect on us and we have an affect on the world, on both worlds. And all worlds.

The other day I was sitting on the bus smiling at people and looking at their faces. You know, people have beautiful faces. They are all different. Lines, colors, lights in the eyes. Maybe a few people could smile a bit more, but if we all smile all the time then what would be the point of smiling at all? Don’t worry what’s on the inside because G-d Breathes Life into all of us and deep down we are all the same. We’ll all get there together eventually because life is wonderful and it’s full of wonderful people.

“Tikkun Olam: the repair of the world.  If you see what needs to be repaired and how to repair it,then you have found a piece of the world that G-d has left for you to complete.  But if you only see what is ugly in the world, then it is you yourself that needs repair.”  Rebbe Menachem M Schneerson (Lubavitcher Rebbe)

I think we all have a light, a Divine Spark, within us and we all have a deep dense darkness which surrounds that light. And the darker the darkness the brighter the light yearns to shine. And maybe we ourselves are the darkness – opaque cages – preventing the light from shining. Maybe we are translucent multicolored containers spraying rainbows. I have been down. Sometimes I have seen only darkness and now I think I am beginning to see the light, light in that deep deep darkness.

I was listening to a friend playing for change on the street corner.

“It’s a bad day today,” he said. “People don’t want to give. They just pass by and don’t even look in my direction. It’s the people who have nothing who want to give the most.”

I met a friend of his.  He’d bought drumsticks but he couldn’t afford drums.  I suggested paint cans.  Where to get the paint cans?  I suggested he paint something for somebody and keep the cans.  We shook hands, made new friends.  Ah, guitar, drums, maybe me on harmonica.  We’d make a great band.

The people with little will give their last few dollars because they understand what it is to be hungry: hungry physically, socially, emotionally, spiritually… I bought him a sandwich. He thanked me and put it in his bag for later. Yes, it was selfish on my part. I am trying to learn the warmth of a compassionate heart. I am hoping it will give my life value, change things for the better. But it is not just a material change, a world of more money and food and better health, but it is a world of intangibles, of hidden treasures, where I don’t really change but my world and all the worlds of all the people around me is somehow better.

I’m still working on that compassionate heart.