Victoria S. Hardy

Victoria S. Hardy

Monday, October 02, 2006

Eternal Recurrence



I had a near death experience a few years ago, just months after my only child died in a freak accident, a surgeon made a mistake while performing, I discovered later, unneeded colon surgery. I was left with a gaping 7 inch open wound on my abdomin and was confined to rest for months while the injury slowly grew closed. A nurse came to my home daily to clean the wound and change the bandages and almost daily it struck me that I had done this before. An odd thought, because had I actually experienced it before, wouldn't I have scars? The wound closed and then broke back open as more infection and lost stitches escaped from my flesh and again I knew this experience was familiar to me.

I recovered, returned to work and sitting in my cube, it occurred to me often that I had done this before, I kept being reminded of the movie Groundhog Day. I tried to explain the feeling to a couple people, but upon seeing their disbelieving expressions, I decided this was probably something I should keep to myself. But keeping silent did not make the growing knowledge go away, it grew and I began to use it as a compass to determine my next step. I figured if I had done all this before, the way to stop the cycle was to do things differently, to listen to my instincts versus the opinions of those around me.

I then discovered that the philospher Nietzsche had written on the subject of eternal recurrence in the late 1800's, and the Italian philospher Vico had written about it years before him. Some philospher's speculate that his theory of eternal recurrence was what made Nietzsche lose his mind. Not a hopeful sign for me, as I had been told how crazy I was since I was a child, funny thing, I no longer felt my sanity was in jeopardy, I felt like a blindfold had been removed from my eyes and I was seeing truth for the first time in my life. In the theory of eternal recurrence we are living the same life over and over, perhaps the body is different, but the mind, thoughts, experiences and emotions are the same.

Suppose that when Jesus and others spoke of eternal life, they meant it literally? Suppose the only pearly gates and streets paved in gold belong to people who know this secret? What if we have been here forever? Many religions believe in reincarnation, but in Christianity we are told we have one life and we must behave, we are educated and ideas of reincarnation are for heathens and pagens. But what if the idea of one life, means living forever and when one body wears out we are issued another? What if?

I discovered after my son died that the hardest part of life was living, it's easy to plan for our death, to know after we die we are finally able to rest and have real quality of life, but does that make sense? We have to die to live? And what if you were going to live forever, would you change things? Would you continue to go to that office everyday, sit in the windowless cube everyday, have those above you telling you what and how to do it, everyday? If you knew you were going to live forever, wouldn't you do what and only what you wanted to do? Wouldn't you want to be free?

This is America, but we are not free, those with lots of cash are free, but most of us live week to week, barely hanging on to what we have. Most of us live with the weight of stress, fear and worry heavily on our backs, we know there is not enough for everyone and we must work incredibly hard to get ours, but is that truth?

What if being Saved means seeing the Wheel of Life and becoming free? What if being Saved means realizing that we already have eternal life, it's not something we have to earn by being good and humble? What if being Saved means understanding the big machine, seeing behind the curtain and not just believing what our leaders want us to see? What if being Saved means realizing you are here forever and it's time to find inner peace, not an imaginary reward that will come after you die? What is being Saved means suffering really is optional?

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