The Ocean and the Wave

Buddhism compares all life throughout existence in the universe to the ocean, whereas we are like the waves and come about having a birth, a peak, and then eventually crash back down into the ocean and cease to be. If we individualize each wave, this becomes tragic, but only because we see something as coming to an end and have forgotten that the wave is also water, is also the ocean, and no thing ever really ends, but only goes back to that from which it came.

Death is commonly misperceived as an ending of something, but in reality it is a transmutation of life, a transition to a different form of existence beyond the capabilities of our rudimentary senses to perceive. We put too much focus on the seemingly separate identity of the wave, neglecting the fact of its ultimate state of existence as water, as being one with the ocean.

And this ocean, the collective body of energy that exists as the fabric of all things that are, have been, and will be, is what is referred to in theological terms as God. The energy that animates us, that animates all life, that keeps all things in motion, is a single cosmic organism in an ultimate unexcluding unity. And within this, an infinite number of forms and expressions of life exist.

Hinduism describes it as Lila, the divine play through which God expresses itself in countless forms, a molecular dance of expression. Many have gotten lost in the illusion imposed by physical reality upon the birth of the ego, that which attempts to form a separate identity.

The ego is the bottomless pit, the unquenchable thirst, the constant need for more and more. It seeks to add things into itself to strengthen it, to increase its illusions of grandeur, but all things sought through it are shallow. When what is desired is obtained, it is utterly hollow.

The driving force behind striving after material goods, the big house, the nice car, the expensive watch, the designer clothes, and the brand-new electronic toys, is that by somehow possessing them, you will become a bigger and better man so that others will admire you because of these things that you have collected. And the ego tells you that when you acquire this or that, then you will be happy, and you are until the initial euphoria wears off from the new addition to your collection.

Then the ego sets its sight on something new that it doesn’t have, and now THAT will be the thing to make you happy. But nothing will make you happy until you identify the unending cycle of discontentment the ego creates in the mind.

“If I can get this much money and become wealthy, if I can acquire fame and become superficially loved by the masses, if I can accomplish this great feat and reach success, if I can change the outward appearance of my body and become more attractive, if I could have this or that sexual conquest.”

It subconsciously tells you that if you can get that, become this, or do that, then and finally then you will be happy.

That is until you actually do, and then all of a sudden there is something else on the horizon that will complete you. Through the ego, salvation and fulfillment will always lie just beyond your grasp.

The Buddha explains that all suffering is created due to craving and desire. In the Bible, the devil is a metaphor for temptation, a symbol of the craving and desire of man, that which brings about dissatisfaction and unhappiness, intense mental and emotional suffering, or also called hell.

We create our own personal hell. We create all of our own suffering within our minds because we are lost, knowing that something is missing, stuck in this constant state of yearning and searching for something to fill the void, but nothing will.

The ego tells us that we are alone, separate, isolated, individual, but this is the illusion. The reason that we feel like something is missing in our lives is because we are missing the connection to all other things, to the rest of us, to the rest of nature, to the rest of the cosmos, to God, to what we really are.

The single wave gets lost in its own story, forgetting and losing touch with its oneness with the ocean.

Nothing but spirituality can repair the severed spiritual cord, but nonetheless we try through other means.

True peace, joy, and satisfaction cannot be achieved in any lasting way by any other means. Everything else will fall short.

And many people spend their lives chasing and pursuing things that ultimately mean nothing, money, sex, drugs, fame, always leaving them more empty than before, living life deluded, trying to find themselves in external things while having no idea who or what they are.

Many spend their entire lives completely consumed by this delusion of who they think they are until death begins approaching.

❤️Michael Dowett