Needs. Truth. Consistency.

Since Dad passed, I’ve been struggling to find balance. Everything is on the table to be questioned. And nothing seems to be making sense. 

Beliefs, dynamics, and spaces, which used to provide solace and stability, are no longer. Means for which I used to engage life, honor Universal truths, and practice listening have all but lost their luster. And, what used to bring me comfort and confirmation, seems more questionable and unfamiliar than ever.

While folding laundry today, I decided that I needed some Ram Dass in my life. I always find centeredness with him. Today was no exception.

In a teaching called “Faith”, Ram discussed the need of needs, what truth is, and that what we identify with as consistent or the need for it, is no truth at all. 

Rather, we humans create rules, and the Universe allows. Furthermore, what we create is based on a series of conditioned beliefs that we assign meaning to, either culturally or out of complacency, because we haven’t yet learned how to allow inconsistency consistently. To choose to allow that would mean accepting the truth that our only need is to Be, and the truthful need to consistently be it, different.

Lately, I’ve been struggling to hear the truth about what I need. And in that struggle, what I seem to be coming to crossroads with is what will happen if I don’t find it, and soon. Better yet, in a way that makes sense or is consistent.

What I learned today spoke volumes because it touched on all three elements that have recently left me in a state of fear and imbalance. It was also impactful because it came to me from a trusted source. Moreover, it came in a language that reaffirmed to me something I know to be true, but of which I needed to be reminded that when you ask the Universe questions, getting an answer and liking it, are not always going to be the same thing. 

Since the untimely passing of Dad, I have been doubting my connection with and in the Universe. I’m mad and sad to an unfamiliar extent, and therefore, those feelings are coloring how I see and receive not only Universal messages but also life. My great disdain for confusion probably doesn’t help. Let alone my immense distaste & insatiable curiosity for answerless questions. Truths I’m learning to see at this time. Thus, the great quandary and proof of how Dad’s death and my grief are coloring my present are self-evident, as I do know that the Universe is considered a great mystery because it leaves us with many answerless questions.

I realize that not only am I in the midst of processing the grief of my Father’s death but how greatly it is impacting who and what I know to be true. It is allowing me to see that nothing remains as is forever. That in this truth exists a need to allow for inconsistencies, like the Universe, but in a way that is prudent to heed what we know with a flexibility that humbles us to be naked with wisdom and nuance again, and again, and again.

Within the reality of everything I once knew changing, I can see myself being challenged not only to grieve a tremendous, life-changing loss, but what that means for me. Combined, it’s urging me to again humbly meet with the great mystery that is Universal order, to learn respect for all the juxtaposed within it. And, that includes the value of life’s presence and for the dignity in life’s loss. 

Contained in this moment is the ask of all asks; to allow spinning in the ambiguity of the present, to purposefully seek that which is not easy, nor quick to receive, and to heed truthful, individual answer to what is tainting a formerly sound spiritual, soulful connection to knowing and trusting me, the Universe, and me in Universal presence. 

The here and now has become one big grieving question, not excluding inquiry into what has long since been perceived to be cosmic responsiveness and synergies, but also a humbling realization, encouraging that I look into what I perceive, and allow, for despite not liking the Universe’s current display of reality, it does not mean truths have gone lost. 

Struggling to find reason for not only why Dad left us so suddenly, but my sound spiritual, soulful connection to Universe, receiving this message through reengaging a mindfulness practice with Ram, I believe I have received affirmation that while I am in a state of disbelief to my Universal interconnectedness, the Universe has neither doubt nor lost reason of communicating with me. 

Suffice it to say, what I learned and heard through Ram is a confirmation and question at the same time: confirmation that the Universe is listening, but an ask to look inward to notice, am I? 

In short, what I gleaned from the teaching is that personal practices are nonnegotiable. That human need for reason is only based on who we are in a moment, but moments, like life, are fleeting so how we spend them is vital to consider. 

Because we are nonlinear, and ever-evolving beings, needs are neither consistent nor static, and do not require symmetry, congruence, reliability or relatability to be true. Rather, they only require truth of being, for from moment to moment we are neither the same as we once were one year ago anymore than we were one second ago. That the truth of our lives is not that we become someone who is knowable, likable, or even one who operates according to consistency, but that we allow ourselves from moment to moment to be nobody but who we truthfully are, and in knowing that to be so, is being a true reflection of a Universe that is entirely based on mystery, answerless questions, and instability with stability.

I think the thing I’ve been struggling with as of recently is not only immeasurable heartbreak, or the lack of sense I am unable to find in Dad’s untimely passing, but accepting that it is and will remain an answerless question, while feeling it is a question I need an answer to. 

I think it’s all of that, and quite possibly some things I haven’t even noticed yet. Plus, the unknowable timeframe it will take me to grieve the shocking depth and loss of it, and all of the unanswered questions I have not only about it, but about our relationship, how I can only hope he knows how deeply I have always loved him, as well as all the conversations I’ll never get to have that might’ve — or not — answered those questions truthfully, for me. 

I can’t help but think that Dad’s sudden passing was somehow part of a bigger, cosmic truth, despite how challenging it is at this time to accept and allow it.

I can’t help but wonder that in the sudden disruption of his reliable presence is a larger confirmation; another lesson he’s teaching us about the importance of seeing the horrendous beauty in inconsistency, despite wishing it was learned another way.

I can’t help but feel that even in his sudden absence lies a larger intentionality revealing it was partly his truthful choice to become nobody on the grandest of scales. 

That by departing this life, despite how it feels or looks, it was on his terms. In that, I see something larger in it than his body gave up or given circumstances, it had to give in. I see his Soul & spirit chose it’s next journey. And, in choosing, he got to again teach us another big validity in a Dad-like, larger than life, leadership way. 

He got to embrace the necessary truth of embodying inconsistency first, and echo it through our hearts in such a sound, indisputable way, so that we may bravely follow his lead, like always, and from the highest Universal perspective, continue to encourage us to Be from Truth, and to be it all the way, not afraid, as the only consistency we truthfully, need.

With Blessings,