The recent death of a professor on campus makes me think of David. It's been almost three years since I last saw him. We were such dorks, lol! We planned and fund raised together for Alpha Gamma Sigma, the honors club on campus, which we were both executive officers of. I remember we sold pizza slices, held raffles, attended meetings and goofed around. We did everything we could to stay on campus because our lives off campus were terrible. We both came from impoverished neighborhoods and families. We were always pressured to get involved in gang related activities, but we found ways to get around them. Man, I miss him. He was fun, loving, passionate, strong willed; He was everything a good friend and student leader should be.
The last memories I have of him were that of him giving me a tour of his office and saying that it was his "third of the half". I didn't understand. He explained, "That's the Vice President's side of the office. The Treasurer, Chief Justice, and Secretary use this side. So, it's my third of the half." LOL! It was so funny. I had never been in the student government office before, except to take my student ID, so it was interesting to see it from another perspective. The very last time I saw him was at an ASO meeting. He motioned that I be appointed Associate Justice of the ASO student government, where he was the Secretary. That was the first meeting I had attended. I only showed up because our friend Heather, who was the AGS President, was also the ASO Vice-President and she had recommended I attend. After the meeting he was in a rush to get home. He mentioned that he was going to a party that weekend. I never saw him again.
David was shot during a confrontation at the party and died at the scene. He died at the age of 19. He had so much potential. He had applied to UCLA the semester prior to his death as a Sociology major. He dreamed of graduating from UCLA and going back to improve his community, South Central L.A. His death shocked me. I never had anyone close to me die, so his death changed how I viewed and interacted in society. Truth be told, sometimes I fear I will share his fate. It's common for people in our community to fall victim to senseless violent crimes. I wish our society would move to improve social conditions instead of promoting war and division of classes. I'm not even going to go off on a rant. I just wish society benefited the majority and not the select few.
Namaste, my sister Bee. Being 50 years old I have had to deal with my fair share of death. Over the years I have dealt with death in many different ways. With a dedicated effort you may come to determine the words I offer are not meant to be trite or to belittle the emotions you now must process. However, I wish to impart a modicum of solace to the deep seated sorrow you carry. Here we go, I offer these words with love and consideration.
ReplyDeleteWe are conditioned by society and our five senses to believe in the body. With good reason we determine our life to be finite. If we age we see the deterioration and expect in time death will visit. One truth we all feel is that we will most definitely die. This is just one way the human ego preserves it's grip on the way we perceive reality.
Truth however is a different story. We are not body, we are consciousness. Scientifically we are Photon Energy. Spiritually we are Godself Consciousness or, if it fits better in your paradigm, you could say our true essence is love. As much as your senses and society have deceived you into maintaining a false perception of death the fact still remains that you were never born, ergo you will never die. The Photon energy that you are is eternally expressed in the moment of NOW. The NOW moment is all that exists. There is no past and can be no future, all moments of conscious experience always occur in the NOW.
We represent a wave length of energy and we exist on this plane with the purpose of allowing our soul to gain very specific experiences. This concept of predetermined reality is often misinterpreted by Buddhists as Karma. In fact there can be no balancing of Karma as there are not 6.8 billion souls on this planet rather there is one soul, one being, one consciousness.
You obviously have a wonderful heart full of love my sister. It is this connection to the ONE which causes your heart to continually stir as you feel the sense of loss return. Please take solace in the fact the experience of death is the most glorious experience you could ever imagine. It is during this transition all veils of illusion fall away. The ego is left at the door with body and you then determine the truth and powerfully amazing experience of ONENESS. It is during death we touch the essence of reality to discover we are truly eternal love, truly God in all manifest divinity.
I have been dedicated to 30 years of searching for truth. I can well remember the state of my mind when I was your age. I understand if this esoteric mumbo jumbo makes no sense right now, but one day it will. I don't expect to assuage your grief with trite truisms, I merely wish to offer a bridge to new perspectives.
In Lak' esh, my sister, we are ONE ETERNALLY...