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On different possibilities...
From a collection of Essays:
Beyond Religion III (2001) by
Stanislaw Kapuscinski (aka Stan Law)
What if there were no love?
If there were no inexplicable force binding us all together?
We would feel emptiness in the gaze of a child. We could not sense the mystery of creation. We would not wish to remain immortal––drifting, detached, lonely, suspended forlorn within cold time forever...
We would never experience the joy of selfless giving. Nor would we share in the joy of forgiving. Our compassion would die, slowly, unrequited forever. So much to give, wanting, and no one to give to...
We would never wipe tears from a distraught eyelid, never raise smile on lips tight with fear, never give comfort to a total stranger. There would be no loved ones. No love and no loving. Just hollow indifference stretching ever onward...
Or, perhaps, without love there would still be grim hatred. We would despise, steadfastly, coldly unremitting. We would be as cursed demons in their fiery glory, only fire would sear our dark minds––our hearts would be missing...
What if we were omniscient, as Gods are omniscient?
If we could never err in matters of life or being? Sad loneliness would resound in our souls forever searching nothing. We could never share a new thought, new hope, new idea... never reminisce to a friend an arcane encounter. Nor could we describe to anyone a new vision, never compare dreams, marvel at new experience... Nor could we ever reach out for the unknown, the yet unnamed, mysterious.
We would never be curious since we'd all be all knowing.
We would not turn our gaze at yet an undiscovered country, never wonder of beauty beyond forbidden mountain. Nor would we ever marvel at secrets shrouded in antiquity, nor raise a curious eyebrow at the yet unrealized future. We would never read a new book, foreknowing all the outcomes, never recite a poem, nor study the great Masters. Nor would we ever pray for knowledge, for better understanding, for spiritual enlightenment, for growth, for appreciation...
We would already know what is here, there, and yonder.
We would just be––without ever becoming.
We would be as Gods without their minions, creation, through whom and through which They have Their mode of learning...
What if there were no time?
We would live in the present.
But if we are immortal, to which we surely aspire, all things would happen to us at once––in a jumble. We would be born, live, and die, all in the very same moment. We would never linger a whit gazing at a flower, never lean back and wonder at the cloudless blue yonder, nor watch convoluting clouds pile angels and monsters. Never would we dream of far places beyond the timeless ocean. Nor would we ever regard, awed, astonished, starry-eyed the star-light––longing, never sated, unfulfilled desire... pondering the myriad suns suspended in just a single instant, an ephemeral fragment of eternity that isn't.
Nor would we ever witness a child learning his or her first lesson, never stroll a rose garden––his tiny hand in ours... never see him, nor her, grow in wisdom and knowledge––not if there were no time, no sequence to our being...
And yet there's so much beauty, enchantment to last a lifetime... to stretch, in poignant promise to the blurred edges of orderly potential... harmonious and unfolding, infinite seeds of life in the ocean of living, of horizons beguiling, forever receding...
What if there were no God?
There would be no religions. Or would we create our own fickle gods to sate our need for longing? In whose image would you and I come into boundless being?
Yet... if there were no God would flowers still exude their scintillating fragrance? Would the birds still sing songs, hymns of joy, of ebullient pleasure? Would the trees still weave their arms into crowns of such resplendent glory? Would the sun still kiss our face with caring warmth on a summer's morning...? Would we still perceive beauty and harmony and order, or die ignorant and empty, without ever aspiring?
Would you and I still marvel at mystery of awareness? Or would our hearts empty, devoid of God or Goodness, beat hollow, barren measure, till death grants us freedom from senselessness of being?
Or perhaps, hopefully, the universe might not even be there––stars, planets nor moonlight might never have happened... Neither would have you nor I yet risen from the primeval cauldron...
Neither would I be now writing this soliloquy of sorrow.
Nor yet would you, nor any lonesome soul, have lived to read it...
***
What, say, if instead, we leave things––exactly as we found them?
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Site: Stan I.S. Law
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