The River Dream

There are many rivers. And there are many tributaries to each river. We are born into awareness in its flow, moving with the current. It takes us a while to realize where we are and forever we keep asking what we're doing there and where we are going. Each of us born in the steady flow of these waters think the whole life and world is contained in what we can see ahead of us, which is but a few hundred yards of deceptive waters. But until we move along it, we are never sure of how rough or easy the current is at each point of this journey. The thing that some of us realize and some of us never do is this - we are bound to flow along with the current. Some times in this journey, when the water gets too rough, we struggle to swim as if that would save us from drowning, and we tire ourselves and drown in it none the less. Other times, when the waters are calm and easy, we convince ourselves that we have mastered the current and now decide our destination. Both are falsehoods. We are never the masters of the river but are unwilling entities that are set afloat in it. Sometimes going under and sometimes just reveling in the pleasure of its sensation. But in the end the rivers and the tributaries all end up in the deep unending ocean. There is no more journey past that. We drown in its immense waters. Some of us, already having let go of our desire to control the waters, drown in peace, holding on to memories of the journey behind us. While some of us struggle till our last breath to find a shore that doesn't exist and drown in considerable fear and anguish. This is the truth about life. This is the only truth about life. That we are part of something that we have no control over and we end in death. The sooner we let go of our desire to brave the waters and just let the current take us where we are all going in the end, the sooner we are at peace.