I am frequently astounded by the superficiality of people. Every day, we hear reports of the increasing mental health problems among people of all ages. It's become a crisis. And yet, despite this alarming trend, very few people seem to make any real effort to understand where these problems originate. It’s as though we are all sleepwalking through life, accepting what we’re told, unaware of the deeper truths we could explore.
The thing is, if you have no idea who you are, you automatically assume that you are what others tell you. Ask a person, "Who are you?" and they will give you their name, their profession, their marital status, their nationality. But is that really who they are? Think about it. None of those things were in their control when they were born. You didn’t choose your name, your gender, your skin color, or even where you were born. You didn’t know what these things even meant. All of that came later, as you were indoctrinated by your surroundings. Yet, we grow up and believe this collection of labels and roles define us.
We are not taught about the limitations of thought. Thought is always about the past or the future; it's never about the present moment. And because we can't truly understand the present except in terms of what we've been through or what's coming, we end up constructing a reality that is based on memories or anticipations, not what's actually here and now.
A classic example is what happens when we die. Think about how many theories there are. Some believe in paradise or hell. Others think we reincarnate and keep coming back, while still others hold onto bizarre ideas like moving to a purple planet in another galaxy. But where's the proof? Where is the real knowing? There are countless ideas, but the fact is, nobody knows. If we do come back, why don't we remember who we were before? What’s the point of coming back if you have no recollection of the past?
Some claim to know, but it's just that—a claim. Not proof. I’ve met a lot of people who believe they understand death, or claim to have seen something beyond, but as Carl Sagan pointed out in his "Pale Blue Dot" speech, we are but a speck in the grand scale of the cosmos. A tiny, invisible speck that we continue to insist is the center of the universe. We’ve convinced ourselves that we are so important that the entire fabric of existence revolves around us. But the universe is vast, endless. Space itself is incomprehensible, so vast that we can’t even begin to grasp its boundaries. And yet, here we are, with our tiny brains, pretending we can understand the infinite, pretending we can explain everything through belief.
Look at the mess we've made because of our beliefs. Humans, over time, have tried to manage and control their world through belief systems. Religion, politics, economics—all are constructs that help us feel like we have a handle on things. But just look around. We’re killing ourselves and the planet because of these very beliefs. Environmental destruction, wars, hatred—what are these if not the product of deeply held but completely misguided beliefs? We cling to ideas about who we are, what we should be doing, and where we are going, without ever stopping to question the validity of those ideas.
This is where unlearning comes in. We have to stop assuming we know everything when, clearly, we don't. The place to start is with ourselves—back to basics. Strip away the labels, the titles, the professions, and the nationalities. Strip away the thoughts about the future and the past, and focus on the present moment.
What do we know for sure? We are alive. But what does that even mean? We believe we are alive because of our own efforts, our intelligence, our accomplishments. But that’s nonsense. The most fundamental aspect of life is breath, yet how many of us are conscious of that? We are being breathed by something far greater than ourselves. If we had to manage that, we’d all be dead in seconds. We do nothing for this breath, but without it, we are nothing.
Here’s where the divine comes in. Look in the mirror, and what do you see? You see a person who is alive—not through any effort of your own, but through a miraculous process that just *is.* That is the only real miracle in life. And what do we do with that miraculous gift? Nothing. We don’t even notice it. The breath is the first and last thing in life. Anyone who has witnessed a birth knows this: the first breath a baby takes is the moment of life. And anyone who has been present at a death knows this too: the last breath is the end. The cycle is so simple, yet so profound, and we ignore it every single day.
We spend our time chasing goals, living by labels, clinging to beliefs. But have we ever taken the time to understand who we really are? Most of us are living someone else’s idea of a life. So many people go through life in a haze, believing they are their job, their relationship status, their possessions. All of these things are temporary and external.
To truly understand life, we have to make the effort to know ourselves before it’s too late. The way we’re going, most of us will "pop our clogs," as the British say, never having figured out who we really are. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We have the power to unlearn all the lies, to shed the labels, and to return to the simplicity of being alive. That’s where the real miracle lies—not in the future, not in the past, but in the present, in the breath, in the experience of being alive.
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