The Tenth Insight - a brief commentary - part one

Because of a comics script that I'm currently working on and that takes place in Shambhala (well, part of it does), I've decided to continue reading James Redfield's books, namely The Tenth Insight: Holding The Vision and it's follow-up The Secret of Shambhala.

As you probably know, James Redfield is widely known for his book The Celestine Prophecy. A book that tries to expound on how the individual might secure a greater sense of spirituality within himself, whilst providing tools for him/her to achieve this over an action-adventure setting.

I really enjoyed that first book when I read it probably some ten years ago.

But, since then, a lot of things have happened.

I saw also the film about The Celestine Prophecy a couple of years ago. Enjoyed it for the low budget that it was and the difficulties of making it work on the screen but felt that the message hadn't actually been communicated through it. A good attempt but a failed one nonetheless.

Anyway, I got to The Tenth Insight some ten days ago.

Surprisingly I felt the writing didn't really engage me, that I could see through it the objectives of the writer, everything feeling a tad too artificial for me.
Still, and fortunately so, some parts abounded with information that, even though didn't shake me to my very foundations, were still good to revisit and imbued with a good sense of heartfelt truth.

But on this book, much more than the previous, what I've been feeling the most are the author's beliefs and objectives, however positive they may be. It's not the truth but his truth. And the only problem I have with this is that this is not fully acknowledged.

He is trying to give us a world vision after all. An all encompassing sense of things. Which is great but, to me, also flawed. And profoundly so. And, when we get to these things, I feel that we should be extremely careful with what we say otherwise we might be closing doors instead of opening them, as it is our intention.

my first sense of inadequacy came when I kind of projected the journey I'd travelled so far with the Tenth Insight over The Celestine Prophecy. And, beyond that feel that the main character had somehow been partially reset in order for this new spiritual progression take place, I felt that both books shared this idea that spiritual clarity is easy and quick for those deeply involved in it.

Now I'm not saying that this is untrue - because it isn't - what I'm saying is that it doesn't apply to everybody. Well, at least, that's what my experience shows.

Spirituality means different things to different people. And what I have observed that happens with most people is that, as soon as they realise some of their inner truths with some degree of profoundity, these truths (be it fears, aspirations, dreams, ideas, feelings, sensations) become more insubstantial. And this creates a sense of well being, since the old pressure has subsided, often believing that it has disappeared. Yet, to me, what I see is that these things have only become more ethereal, more vague, more diluted and difficult to track and observe. And so people acquire this tendency to forget about them and believe some processes have been completed or are very close to completion.

Some times people have deep revelatory experiences. Visions. Dreams. A sense of clarity and purpose that seems to transcend and take them with them. and because the sense of true imbued in these things is so powerful they tend to take these things literally.

And I'm not saying that they shouldn't. I'm saying that they should pay attention to their attachment to these experiences and to the truth they seem to contain.

When people tell me these experiences what I usually tend to see is how capable their psychology and knowledge obtained throughout this latest incarnation of theirs is able to create such a scenario.

And I think this is the most important thing to recognise. It keeps us humble and it keeps us both inside our experiences and yet somewhat detached from them. It makes these experiences flexible to time.

I'm saying all these things because I've been through processes like these or similar to these many times, always during meditation retreats, in such a way that these days I am able to acknowledge phases of deepening awareness where these experiences are likely to take place.

They're always powerful and life-changing. but the change that occurs is that you're no longer so surprised by them, because they become (at least during a retreat) more of a routine than a rare occurrence.

And I think that's what makes a huge difference. When you go to the encounter of these experiences with both a method and inner determination, with conditions being met both inside and outside of you.

I am saying these things because I recognise that it is easy to be somewhat misguided by oneself. The ego can be rough and tough but it is also subtle and alluring. and it is at these levels that these characteristics become more apparent - and it is oh so tempting to fall prey to them. Because they feel so good and so nice and warm and comforting. we are excited and yet we are at peace. And the world seems to open before us and, lo and behold, it reveals the very secrets we longed for so long. And we take them and now we have a mission and we KNOW.

And we miss the ego behind these things. We miss the subtle constructs of our psyche that have simply produced a wonderfully beautiful dream. A dream better than anything we could've come up by ourselves but that, simultaneously, encompasses so many of our half spoken, half thought aspirations and hopes.

I have felt this very clearly with The Tenth Insight. James has probably had many profound experiences and his desire to help his fellow human being is quite genuine. But it's this very need and thirst that both mask and reveal his own being behind it: even if he does try to remove himself from the picture and achieve a position of greater neutrality.

that this happens is only natural. And it is because it is so that I am writing this. It is clear that many of James's experiences where somewhat spontaneous, that his karma has brought them easily into his life. He partially sought them, of course, but life was also always there for him, guiding him towards these achievements. So, it is natural that his whole approach to spirituality is that of a free floating method. A method that really has little of methodical about it. based more on principles than techniques.

And that is fine, of course.

But, my hang-up with that is that I believe that this is not so for most humans living today.
The potential for them to reach such a state is there in all of us of course. But, in the physical, practical sense, it is not with so many of us.

Because if it was, there were many more James Redfield's around. The Celestine Prophecy would be lost in a sea of similar texts and probably even be considered mediocre. It is not. It is considered a shiny beacon: and it is!

If we are honest, and if we leave our comfortable nest of family, friends and companions on the spiritual path we will see that the spiritual level of most people is embrionary. The seed is there in all of us but it is next to dormant in most of us.

If this weren't so, it wouldn't take catastrophic events affecting our lives to shake us out of this slumber and awaken the desire to reach higher and deeper into ourselves.

some of us don't need this drama or trauma to do this of course.

In these people the seed is moving.

But how far do we go into turning the seed into a full blown being? Perhaps we stop with the first root or sprout coming out of the seed, believing this is it.

And it is. But it really is just a beginning.

Anyway, I feel that James wants to inspire us into a sense of ease and possibility within our lives. And that is so good. But it can also be unrealistic. And if that's the case, then the shock of realising this can throw us too far back for us to realise it is just a necessary part of our process of growth and acceptance.

another problem that I see with this text is that James creates names to label some type of experiences. and, by doing this, not only he's kind of implying that they will happen to all of us (or that they are there for us to access them) but also that they are real, that they are what he's implying that they are.

I think this is also natural to happen. After all he wants to give us clarity about things as much as possible, he wants to materialise these things in our minds eye. but, then again, there are issues with these things.

I suppose I felt like most people did when reading about one's Birth Vision, World Vision and, particularly, the chapter A History Of Awakening.

I felt I would like to be able to experience these things also.

That, here they were, so clear, so easily accessible and yet my brain, my mind, my spirit, unable to communicate and reach them and make them readily available to my experiencing.

But then I remembered some of the stuff that happened to me whilst on a few retreats. And I could easily fit it into either of these categories.

The difference? The difference was that I never bothered to label these things apart from describing the meaning that these had imprinted on me.

You see when you label something, when you give an experience a name, you limit it, because when you remember it you remember it through that name and through the condensation of meaning, of content that was distilled from the original experience. this is the problem with words. They appear to reveal but in fact they limit immensely. This is why I more and more feel that words can only serve as guideposts, as signs along a road. Rather than ever showing the path they can only point the way. And I feel it's very important to keep this in mind at all times - simply because minds have a tendency to do the exact opposite which, of course, simply reveals their own present and more superficial nature.

Before I wrap this text I'd like to say a few things more about the Birth Vision, World Vision and a History Of Awakening.

As it seems to me the Birth Vision of an individual has mostly to do with the awakening of part of our core self. Kind of like a stepping stone onto the ultimate experience of enlightenment. Because we are approaching a kind of core level of being our ego, our own personal history become somewhat detached from the moment to moment experience. in other words, we are fully aware of what's happening, only the fact that this is about us, and that it is us that are experiencing it doesn't seem so important anymore. From this looser, free floating mindful landscape and vantage point, we observe our history in a new light, from a new perspective. It is easy to see personal traits and the way our life, those around us and the world combined apparently seamlessly to create, reinforce or model them. we watch the film of our becoming, not just watching us but watching all of the participants contributing to it. it is a life transforming experience and it may occur several times, at each time, new aspects of this coming into light. Sometimes some being further developed, clarified or transmuted into a deeper sense of truth.

The World Vision is the next logical step from the Birth Vision. we have gained a deeper knowledge of who we are and what made us but we still have this need of knowing how we fit in with the rest of the world. this is a kind of proto-history of awakening. we suddenly realise that the process of others must be somewhat similar to ours, that some of these people might have realised it whilst others haven't yet and we play multiple scenarios that would contribute to either outcomes. as these mount there comes a sense of direction, after all if we evolved and changed and found a deeper, inner core, so will others. Therefore, if this happening to more people, and it seems to be a kind of a goal in each of us then certainly the world too must be imbued with this sense of direction. Then our personal sets of beliefs feed into this sense of direction and an image, a configuration of a world behaving in this way comes clearer into view. Perhaps then we involuntarily work backwards somewhat, seeing the near past and the present, seeing the conditions we lived through or know sufficiently about that support this, that create a causal relationship that enhances that sense of direction. we can see our direction in tune with the world, and we can sense the direction of the world, affecting all beings, moving us too, towards an outcome that is far greater than what we already sense for all of us. It could only be so, in any case.

But then, if we (voluntarily or not) cast our mind back and start to fathom how the past has given rise to the present we are living through, to this future that can be somewhat vague but yet utterly precise in the reality of our experience, we are then able to see the whole of life's evolution on Earth as an aspect that gave rise to our present condition, that will give rise to what will undoubtedly one day come.

What is necessary to remember here is that these experiences will mostly feed on things we already know. That either we have acquired deliberately or not - with a good degree of freedom and creativity by the creation of some connections and establishment of relationships between things that we might not be fully aware before.

in short all of these experiences correspond simply to the increasing distance our momentary experience of our inner nature retains in regards to our ego. Ie, they correspond to the egoic detachment that is simultaneous with and an expression of, our true nature of being. This feeling of expansion culminates in a sense of infinity accompanied with a loss of form, context and content, until we finally become one with ourselves, stop to know, transcending that feeling of infinity altogether and enter what lies beyond it.

Enlightenment.

(or, quite possibly, simply a glimpse of that experience, too powerful for our not yet quite ready minds to hold on to...)

Peace.

A Time For Everything

The more you meditate the more meditative your attitude towards life will be. During the last few days I have been meditating more than usual. And I've kept catching myself doing things only semi-alert (what we call the normal state of consciousness, the non-awakened state) to them - the usual.
But, because I have been meditating more, I have been able to retain some measure of concentration after that moment of awareness. For a few seconds my mind stops chattering and begins paying attention to the little things that fill our lives.

Just a few minutes ago I was taking a shower. One of those showers that you thank the universe for the experience. Today has been a very warm day here in London and I cycled, quite relaxedly though, for about half an hour, from work. I was sweaty and warm and just wanted to get in the tub and feel the water falling all over me.
And when I did I suddenly realised the soft but deep pleasure I was having. The body relaxing from the exercise, the mind relaxed for me being home, and the warm feeling of becoming cleaner, lighter, freer. I observed the mental chatter and it disappeared.

And I immersed on the physical sensations invading me at each moment. A huge beautiful symphony that I barely could keep track of. I didn't try to. I just allowed my frail consciousness to flow, just like water, through the plethora of experiences coming to me.
And, after a few seconds of mental silence a thought came to me. An insight. The realisation that, as a child this type of awareness was much more common than it tends to be these days. At least, I believe this is the case for most of us. As children, because we have less mental constructs in our heads, our minds sometimes, spontaneously, shut up and we're simply there, peacefully observing. Being.

In a flash I realised that we lose this with time, as we become increasingly obsessed with time itself. With meaning. With knowing. With this experience or the next or the previous or some other, somewhere in the past, perhaps coming towards us from the future. With fantasy.
In one way or another children seem to naturally retain this openness of perception, before objectives and all manner of wantings come into place.

I recalled the words of a friend of mine that keeps reminding people around him that "There's a time for everything".
I agree with this. I think it's important to become aware of the age in life we are traversing so that we can fulfil in harmony with our capabilities.
And then be able to let it go and move on to the next.

I think he, like myself, has observed many times people that are still stuck to a particular age that they feel they have not lived completely. This may happen through longing for those times long gone. Or through hatred towards those times (or even those living that age themselves).
Living in a way that we are flowing with the time present in us is easy but also difficult. For it's rare to find reliable guides to help us find footing where we stand.
Most of the times, we end up having to figure it all out by ourselves. This is not only tiring and incredibly complex but also difficult to achieve.
To my mind this should be the main role of those with greater experience than ourselves. Usually this means people older than us, people that have crossed the times we are traversing already, that can see where we stand from the vantage point of their distance.
Of course, these days particularly, things aren't that easy. Things keep changing around us and, young or old, we all struggle in one way or another to keep up with the changes we see around us.
This much is clear...
We cannot stop the world. Perhaps nor should we want to.
But the one thing we know we can incredibly influence is ourselves.
Therefore it is important to find those that can guide us through the unfolding of our-selves.
Which kind of brings me back to the beginning of this. For these people (we can call them spiritually minded - even if they don't believe in spirituality themselves, simply by being interested in their actions, in their beings and their relation with things around them, they are already being spiritual and spiritual beings - that is, to me at least, the core of spirituality, uncovering the true extension of self), these spiritual people, will have lessons learned, stories to tell, ideas to teach, advisable practices and, above all, the experience of their years and the examples of their lives to share.

(and I think this is the role we all should represent to one another too... everybody has something to learn and something to teach - sometimes even they are the same thing, only from perhaps different perspectives)

But, in order for us to benefit from this wealth of knowledge, we must learn how to be present. I usually say, learn how to listen. And listening, to me, is a full being thing. When you listen you listen with the wholeness of you - not just the ears.
Using just the ears is like saying that cycling is pedalling.
And I think that we all know what will happen if we only pedal and don't pay attention to traffic, use the handle bars or even sit properly...

For this we need to be present.
So, and in conclusion, for us to truly be present in this time and age of ours we need to retain awareness of what's happening. We need to be insightful into the now. We need to be present.
Then, perhaps not only we'll fulfil each time, one moment at a time, but perhaps we will feel that each time, each moment, is already full. That each moment is already everything.

The Human Incompleteness Theorem

This is a theme that has been running in my mind for a while now and yesterday, while cycling home, this title surfaced and I more or less felt it was time to start writing about it. After all, if I don't do it, I'll probably end up forgetting it.
(for a while at least, these things do tend to come back again, reformulated, at a later stage, as if everything had its own cycle or appearance, disappearance, transformation and reappearance)
Kurt Gödel was the mathematician that proved MATHEMATICALLY that any single system we might come up with will never contain enough tools to be able to prove every possible affirmation about that system.
To put it more simply, if you want to know EVERYTHING about the box, you need to be OUT of it.
Bringing this theme closer to home, if we want to know everything about ourselves, or consciousness or whatever it is, we simply have to accept the fact that we can't, because, whatever the tools we employ, the very tools will end up limiting us.
We have a physical body, mind, consciousness, karma, spirituality. All these things (either we know exactly what they are or not it doesn't matter) will define how much we can know about ourselves.
It is our nature (well, for most of us it is it seems to me...) that, as soon as we realise something we jump on to the next.
And to the next.
And to the next.
It's a never-ending process of "searching for".

For better or for worse Kurt Gödel comes to clearly state that we will never reach everything.
If anything, it will be the reverse, the more we know, the more we will become keenly aware of the astounding array of possibilities. And if our perception of things changes then chances are we'll add even more to what we already had. Every new thing will expand our system, perhaps making us feel even more incomplete than before.

I was talking to a friend a few days ago about this. I told her that this isn't a pessimistic vision of things but merely a call to accept one of the most basic rules of the game. That, in fact, this theorem revolutionised mathematics, making it a much more fertile ground. It was a huge leap in terms of attitude and my personal stance is that it still hasn't even been fully integrated in the scientific community. It's too big and it goes against our natural desires. Therefore, it's acceptance is more on logical and scientific terms rather than heartfelt or experiential ones.

To me, as soon as I discovered Vipassana and had the chance of experience deeper stages of the practice, I made the connection between Buddha and Gödel immediately. It was an obvious one. Gödel had simply reached a mathematical framework for something essential to the Buddhist teachings. The experience of the incompleteness and limitation of self.
In a way we can think of the Incompleteness Theorem as a mathematical assertion on the nature of desire, on its omnipresence, on the acceptance that the drive for knowledge is something that binds us and that keeps pushing us forward but that, ultimately, we're fighting a losing battle. That even though it is important that we continue to expand our vistas, it is crucial to accept that we cannot reach the Absolute with our minds or any kind of construct. You see the Incompleteness Theorem reveals the fine boundaries that are in place at all levels of experience. And, subtly, just like the Buddha encouraged us to go and seek and see for ourselves, it teaches us that the best thing we can do is perceive that these are in place, accept them and let go. Thus allowing us to integrate them. Grow closer to them. And expand.

I think in a very subtle way Gödel is telling us there is more to life than mathematics and mind. The Buddha simply said, and you can see it for yourself. You can experience directly the breaking point of normal perception into something much vaster than no longer depends upon the mind's conceptualisation.
By experiencing the end of mind one gets as closely as possible from getting out of the box.
In fact, we reach the walls of our box. We become part of them.
Perhaps we cannot look on what's on the other side.
But we've reached all that we could, the maximum of our possibilities.
And I believe that when we return to the inside of the box (all of this may only take a moment to happen) we will find that it has considerably expanded.
And by travelling between these two very different experiences we will be able to wholly transform and expand the whole of our world view.
For the good of all beings.

Peace.

The Origins Of Wonder

I was just cycling home a few minutes ago, my mind racing as I pedalled, not so much in tune with the motion but rather with the fact that I'll be leaving in a few days for my yearly retreat and, as always, there's a lot of stuff that I want to do before I go.
Actually, one of the big advantages of doing a yearly retreat is that, at least once a year, you have to get your life in order. From living space to head space.
And this, in conjunction with the film I saw last night, Elegy, the Manga I want to read for Mondays discussion and considerations about people I know, prompted this wonder musing in my mind.

And this is why we're here, right?

As I found myself thinking about all the different Manga series I was carrying I started wondering if I'd actually enjoy any of them (in the sense, would I like to read more of the series or not?), if I could actually relate to the stories and themes revolving around pre-teens, most likely set in contemporary Japan... it seemed a bit far fetched as I cycled but, I thought, even if I don't relate, it's definitely something I'm curious on doing, something I think I will benefit, be more in touch with the cultural here and now so to speak.
And, if I was lucky, perhaps I would feel that sense of wonder that I experienced so many times as kid. That's what it means to me to be a kid. To be imbued of that sense of all pervasive wonder which we tend to equate with intense happiness.

In doing some research today for covers for the Jack Of Tales comics series, I ended up bumping into an Alan Moore interview on a comics website and there he talked about League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and how Philip José Farmer had had such a massive influence on the title. He mentioned one of Philip's books: Tarzan Lives! to exemplify the mutability of his writing. Alan said something like "as if it had been written by two Burroughs". Meaning Edgar Rice Burroughs (the creator of Tarzan) and William S. Burroughs (a writer that explore writing through drug induced states and whose life was one big, dangerous experiment).
I've read them both and, for different and similar reasons, I've enjoyed them both immensely. Tarzan was obviously a childhood hero, with plenty of righteous fights and nature and damsels in distress. William Burroughs was the first person to safely take me into the realms of the deeply altered human mind. He was using his own hallucinations and surrealism to bring us one step closer to reality. A bit like observing a madman will give you insight into the true nature of madness and thus broaden your perception of yourself and the humanity at the same time.
All this to say that I could feel through Alan's words his own sense of teen wonder when he too read those authors.

And this took me to muse on how that sense of wonder had developed in me? Why does it surface at all?

"We think in absolutes"

I believe this was the sentence that simply popped into my mind. Meaning, we experience in absolutes, rather than thinking. I knew what I meant even though my mind tends towards words I use only too often...

The idea here is that when we experience something, at the root of our senses, there is no comparing of that experience with anything else. Things just are. Each and every single experience is complete. And every single one feels like the first time. Each is unique. Each is complete.
To me, this is the physiological root of wonder.
We have it all the time. At each passing moment. But, because our degree of integration with ourselves, with our body and senses is frail, we rarely perceive this completeness.
We only experience what comes after.
Which is the comparison between this experience and many others that have happened before.

I felt very happy and alive (as I always do) when this happened.
My mind was racing now in order to observe more of this perception. I found myself traveling back in time in my own memories trying to see where the perception of that feeling had started and had grown into a more conceptual form.
The thing I came up with were some very old animation series from the late seventies, early eighties. Namely Future Boy Conan and The Mysterious Cities Of Gold.
This was where fantasy, wonder and spirituality started to become connected the way they have been since.

For years I had an image in my head: there's a young kid staring at the horizon, perhaps on top of a hill and, suddenly, the ground beneath his feet starts to shake, everything begins to collapse and a huge ship, as big as a city but in the shape of a manta ray, lifts from under the ground and hovers high above him, amidst all the destruction.
That image was so powerful that it stayed with me for years and years. It's still here. I had forgotten the name of the series to such an extent that in my early teens I had started to doubt the actual existence of such a series. I'd asked around but no one seemed to remember.
It was only in my mid twenties that I found out that it belonged to the animation series called Future Boy Conan. As soon as I saw some images I realized it was that boy on the screen that I had seen in that image many many years ago.
I still haven't seen the series again but one day I will and, when I do, I'm sure that image, or something close to it (after all memory does change with time) will be there waiting for me.

The other thing that I realised was that even though these series had such an incredible sense of fantasy and wonder in them because they were being shown on television, because schedules kept changing (television was quite irregular when I was a little kid, shows would be announced simply on the day, not be aired at all, delayed for an hour, anything was possible in those, still early, days) I'd often miss good chunks of series altogether.
I remember watching a re-run of The Mysterious Cities Of Gold when I was about sixteen or seventeen. And even with a regular schedule, I'd often miss an episode here or there.
And, because of this haphazard nature of television, we were not presented with a continuous, smooth flow of plot and story development. No. We were presented with parts of the story. Some episodes you'd see many times. Some you never did watch.
I think this had a curious effect on my mind.
I had to fill in the gaps.
So even though watching television is a pretty passive activity, the way you watch it can also truly engage with your imagination.
Besides the obvious daydreaming about your favourite series...

This somehow took me to think about the main theme of the film I saw yesterday (Elegy): ageing and the realisation of life.

Why does something so obvious and omni-present as growing old surprise us so much? This in the sense of the film, more clearly expressed in Tolstoy's immortal words:
"A man's greatest surprise is age."
Why is it such a life changing realisation? Why is it so painful? Shouldn't we slowly grow accustomed to it?
I'm not talking about rational, logical explanations here. I'm talking about the emotional side of it, so seemingly uncontrollable.

Here's perhaps the glimpse of an answer.
I think the basis for this confusion stems from our good old, root perception versus conceptual perception.
At a sensory level perception is always complete and immutable. One's perception of heat surely depends on the amount of heat sensors one has in the skin but, however many, however accurate, the information they provide is always complete. Remember, there is no comparison at this level. That touch consciousness is always perfect from an internal perspective.
This means that, at every moment of awareness, on a root level we are always complete, full and fully present.
But then the mind starts to decipher all this information.
It starts separating it, trying to make "sense" out of it. Fitting it in boxes so it can create based on it, so it can more easily create a bridge between this moment of awareness and the next.
This is when the "problems" start...

That splitting up of information in many different possibilities (and/or meanings) creates waves of neuronal comparison. The sensory stimulus interacts with the brain, expanding the original inflow of information with the one that the brain is creating through its interaction with it.
Memory is naturally engaged with this. And by memory I don't mean necessarily experiences we remember. Actually, I believe that most of this mnemonic engagement is with forms (I have no better word to try and define these structures) we don't even know we have as part of our mind space.
So, this second stage is all about creating a different state. Of, apparently, noticing the differences. Therefore, and because this is usually the state we begin to pay attention to (the sole state where we are "awakened") this means we only consider this one side of the equation. We see the distance rather than what's there.
This is the origin between the still "being young inside" (the raw sensory information reaching us spontaneously at every moment) and the "feeling old" when one looks at the mirror or observes how much more difficult it is now to move or have energy or whatever (but this is the comparative state given by the mind, observing the differences).

Obviously, because we haven't integrated these two seemingly opposing perceptions into a single experience (non-dual, constant, continuous, etc), we tend only to focus (somewhat unconsciously) on the difference between what was and what is.
And this causes us pain.
But, as always, this pain is mainly present because of our ignorance about our own conditions. Because we aren't truly awake. Ie, we cannot contemplate and be aware of the simultaneity of both perceptions. One non-dual in nature (raw sensory data) and the other wholly dualistic (our mind comparison mechanisms based on sensory and brain data).

In sum, we feel the pain of being old because we aren't truly in touch with ourselves within the moment.
When we are our age has no pain, regret, loss or whatever negative feeling attached to it. Because we are in touch with the raw sensory data streaming in. We are in touch with the feeling of completeness it entails. With its timeless quality (time only exists by comparison, ie, this moment is different from that one. Within the moment, there is only the moment, there is nothing else).
We are neither young or old.
We are timeless.
We are closer to our truth and to its all pervasive qualities.
We are fully awake in being.

Peace.