FEELINGS: MEANING IN LIFE

Emotion, feelings, come in all sizes, shapes and colors. As I look out across Aransas Bay I see waves breaking into foam. That is on the surface. The bay is moved by the tides which are in turn drawn by the movement of the Gulf Stream.

Quick, superficial emotions, anger, sudden joy, are foam on the surface. The deep, lasting, meaningful feelings are like the deep currents that carry all that is on the surface. Agape love is the most powerful and lasting deep current. It gives rise to the emotions that direct our lives.

Without deep feelings, we are not truly alive. We only exist. The danger lurks on the surface where violent storms can quickly arise, but the deep currents are unaffected.

All living things know emotion. A plant can sense danger, know fear. So can a maggot. A rock seems only to exist, but is there subtle life inside? I am not sufficiently yet awake to feel that life, if it is there, so I do not know. I suspicion that rocks, stars, and all that is lives, and therefore feels emotion. All comes forth from the One life from which all feeling comes, and the child contains the essence of the parent, even a rock.

Physicists now join mystics in recognizing the Universe to be conscious, the ineffable All Mind. With life comes emotion, inherent in everything that exists. Existence is alive. It feels. It knows it feels, therefore it has profound meaning. Remembering de Chardin, who knew he existed because he thought. I know I am because I feel. — — — — —