You know that life in the world can change at the snap of a finger. You also know that the phenomenon of life, of its very nature, changes right and left. Even when life doesn’t seem to be changing, it is changing. Life, as it appears, is ever-new. This isn't the first time I have said this, is it?
When you were a child, change changed right before you. You grew an inch. You learned a new word. The magnificence of it – you learned to speak a language. You went from baby to toddler. You learned to ride a tricycle. Life flashed between your eyes, and next thing you knew you rode a 2-wheeler, and then a motor-cycle and so on.
After childhood, changes are not so sudden-appearing. Changes become more like after-thoughts. They have been predicted as a standard procedure. Even as age is happening, as hair become gray, it doesn’t happen all at once. Then suddenly, it seems, the way spring appears, suddenly, your hair is all gray or your hair is sparse.
Silly you, these evidences of change appear like afflictions to you. Ideas accrue to what you notice. Now you have the idea you are growing old. The world tells you that this is reality. Even what you pronounce as reality is an idea, and, often, an inherited idea. An idea of reality is not identical to Reality. Pronouncements of Reality in the world may be off-base. Once flat Earth was considered Reality. There are those who would revive that idea. There are even those who say that this theory is still true. Someone says so.
Styles of belief also change just as styles of dress do. The facts that illustrate change also change. One theory is in today, and another theory tomorrow. Truth in the world changes according to popularity. True Truth stays the same. The truth of the world is made by style-setters. Truth, as seen in the world, changes on a basis of popularity which is no basis at all.
There are two residual questions I ask:
How do you know anything, and why do you have to know whether the Earth is flat, round, or square? Everything goes on with or without your interpretation. What difference does it make to Reality what you think? If you call sand wet and water dry, what difference does it make to sand and water?
When it comes to yourself, however, everything does mean what you say it means, and it does makes a difference to you. Your hair has turned gray. You may say that this is the beginning of the end. You may say it is a downslide. You may say it is your decline.
You may write great poetry attesting to this: “We clamb the hill thegither…, and now we maun totter down, John…and sleep thegither at the foot…” * Most often you pick up your interpretations from those before you and those beside you. You are surrounded with built-in ideas.
How you interpret makes all the difference in the world. There are too many experiences predicted by the world at large, and you predict them as well, and therefore too many interpretations that are taken as fact and, therefore, in fact, predict and decide your experience.
Is the world topsy-turvy or what? You already knew that even when you accepted the beliefs of the world.
What was once impossible is now everyday or even a standard.
What you don’t already know is what tomorrow will bring. Don’t be so sure you know what is topsy or what is turvy. Let go of holding on now.
* Editor’s Note: These words are from a poem in Scottish dialect entitled John Anderson, My Jo John by Robert Burns, 1759–1796