One Man`s Bible

54

You no longer live in other people's shadows, nor treat other people's shadows as imaginary enemies. You simply walked out of their shadows and stopped making up nonsense and fantasies. You are now in a vast expanse of emptiness and tranquility. You came into the world naked and without cares, there is no need to take anything away with you, and even if you wanted to, you wouldn't be able to.

Your only fear is unknowable death.

You recall that your fear of death began in childhood, and that your fear of death then was much worse than it is now. The slightest ailment made you worry that it was an incurable disease, and, when you fell ill, you would think up all sorts of nonsense and be stricken with terror. Your having survived so many illnesses and even disasters is purely a matter of luck. Life in itself is an inexplicable miracle; to be alive is a manifestation of that miracle. Is it not enough that a conscious physical body is able to perceive the pains and joys of life?

What else is there to be sought?

Your fear of death came about when you were mentally and physically weak. There was the feeling of not being able to breathe, and you were afraid that you would not be able to last long enough to take your next breath. It was as if you were falling into an abyss, this sensation of falling was often present in dreams during your childhood, and you would awaken in fright, drenched in perspiration. In those days, when there was nothing wrong with you, your mother used to take you for numerous hospital tests. Nowadays, even under your doctor's instructions to have tests, you often procrastinate.

It is clear that life naturally ends, and when the end comes, fear vanishes, because fear is itself a manifestation of life. On losing awareness and consciousness, life abruptly ends, and there can be no further thinking and no further meaning. Your affliction had been your search for meaning. When you began discussing the ultimate meaning of human life with the friends of your youth, you had hardly lived. However, it seems that having savored virtually all of the sensations to be experienced in life, you simply laugh at the futility of searching for meaning. It is best just to experience this existence, and, moreover, to look after it.

You seem to see him in a vast emptiness, with a faint light coming from some unidentified source. He is not standing on any specific or defined patch of ground. He is like the trunk of a tree, but has no shadow, and the horizon between the sky and the earth has vanished. Or, he is like a bird in some snow-covered place, looking here and there, occasionally staring ahead, as if deep in thought, although it is not clear what he is pondering. It is simply a gesture, a gesture of aesthetic beauty. Existence is, in fact, a gesture, it is striving to be comfortable, stretching the arms, bending the knees, turning to look back upon his consciousness. Or, it may be said that the gesture is actually his conscious mind, that it is you in his conscious mind, and it is from this that he is able to gain some fleeting happiness.

Tragedy, comedy, farce, do not exist but are aesthetic judgments of human life, which differ according to the person, the time, and the place. Emotional responses are probably also like this, and what is felt now and what is felt at some other time can fluctuate between being perceived as sad and being seen as absurd. And there is no longer any need for mockery, for it seems that there has been enough self-ridicule and self-purification. It is only in the gesture of tranquilly prolonging this life and striving to comprehend the mystery of this moment in time, that freedom of existence is achieved. It is through this act of solitarily scrutinizing the self, that others' perceptions of one's self lose relevance.

You do not know what other things you will do, or what else there is to do, but this is of no consequence. If you want to do something, you do it. It's fine if you do it, but it doesn't matter if you don't. And you don't have to persist in doing something. If, at a particular moment, you feel hungry and thirsty, you just go and have something to eat and drink. Of course, you still have your own opinions, interpretations, inclinations, and you even get angry, because you are not so old that you don't have the energy for anger. Naturally, you still become indignant, but it is with little passion. And while you still have the capacity for feelings and sensory pleasures, then so be it. However, there is no longer remorse. Remorse is futile and, needless to say, harmful to one's self.

For you, only life is of value, you have a lingering attachment to it, it continues to be interesting because there are still things to discover and amaze you. It is only life that can excite you. That is just how it is with you, isn't it?