#19 Visiting the Inexplicable

Some things are very difficult to share. Which is why I guess we have poets and storytellers and artists and musicians to create vehicles of expression that can contain such things in transferable form. Still, we don't really know how much we can share until we try. So I will try to share something remarkable that I experienced yesterday. 

Yesterday I visited, for the first time, the ohel, or the gravesite, of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The visit was sandwiched between visiting my mother in her nursing home in Philadelphia and visiting my son in NYC . I've read and studied many of the Rebbe's writings over the years but I never met him while he was alive. Somehow, however, when I entered this place I felt reunited with my own soul. 

Why did this happen? And how did I become "separated" from my soul to begin with? 

Well I'll start with the second question first, because I think I have more understanding of that. (And, just maybe, if I answer that well, the first question will answer itself.) I think that, as I live my life, I start off with motivation that is generated from my soul trying to express itself in the world as part of realizing its mission here. (I believe that this is basically true for everyone.) But as my mind gets involved in this and tries to figure out how to help do that, my mind also starts developing goals, agendas, requirements. It also develops expectations, both of myself and of the world. It's this last that might be the most problematic in "keeping mind, body and soul together". That's because these agendas and expectations develop a life of their own which are no longer answerable to anything else - including the soul. These schemes can then become my "identity". And that's the genesis of the "separation" I referred to earlier. Nothing evil here, nothing nefarious. Just a basic misunderstanding of how to use the mind and what it can, and cannot, do. 

The mind is the seat of execution, implementation. It is a fantastic and greatly talented tool of construction, and functions well as an operational control center. But the mind is not the native seat of inspiration, nor of aspiration, passion, or love. All of those are rooted in the soul and they are essentially not rational processes (which makes it easy to see how the mind working alone might get disconnected from these).

And that is precisely why the inexplicable can have such a powerful effect on us. 

And that gets me back to the ohel. Coming up with "reasons" it affected me so deeply probably would be disingenuous, because I don't really know and so I'd probably be wrong. More likely, it is inexplicable on a rational plane. What I can say is that the experience helped me remember who I am and, perhaps, more of who I can be. 

So now what? And why have I labored here to share this with you? For me, it is a dramatic but benevolent reminder to try to stay connected. To stay connected with my inspiration, my aspiration, my passion, my love. In short, to try to stay connected with my soul. 

And here's what I hope for you - and why I am writing this. I hope that next time something inexplicable happens to you, you will see it as the world reaching out to you, to give something to you of great value: a vehicle that might just be able to take you to a place of reconnection with the part of yourself that is beyond reason, the part that is beautiful just because it is, just because you are.

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