Old age is that stage of life when we are decidedly closer to leaving this world. It is also a good time to question oneself and one’s essential identity. To consider one’s own body as the friend that accompanies us, but to feel that we are not the body but that it is a gift of nature that allows us to express ourselves in the world, is a vision that opens up the future.
By Cloty Rubio
If in our beliefs the future ends when the body dies, it is a good opportunity to review them and try to see life from different perspectives in terms of its meaning and value. It is a priority to reflect and search our experience of life for what we feel to be our own essential and sacred reality. We can pull on that thread to venture into the knowledge of our soul. We can learn to listen to the friendly voice within us, that voice that wisely explains to us that there is nothing to fear and that all will be well.
Are there guides in the heart ready to help us and is it up to each human being to establish contact with them? There has been talk of praying, of asking, of giving thanks. People have been doing this since ancient times. Medicine soothes the body, but who or what will soothe the soul? And who will guide us into the new regions of the mind, which we do not know? The best gift we can obtain is the awakening of faith in the meaning of life. To come to perceive that we come from a distant Home, the origin of our being, and that we shall return there. To grasp the value of our life, that is: all that is good, constructive and true, that which has given us the Inner Unity.
It is necessary to remember the inner unity, it is stored in the memory. We must recognise it and draw inspiration from it in order to make it grow. We can detect it, without mistake, by the sense of peace and agreement with oneself that characterises it. We will also need to reconcile with ourselves and with others. This is an act of great courage because it involves total acceptance. But in doing so, peace and gentle joy will blow like the fresh air of new hope.
If we believe that life is lost, that we lose everything, sadness will be inevitable. If, on the other hand, we look at life with gratitude for what we have learned and realise that what is most important is already part of us, the future will open up.
The meaning that flowers give in their scent and their colours, that which shines in the stars, that which moves you at sunset. That which you celebrate with your loved ones, that which is woven into the solidary spike of human construction. Joy, friends, effort, generosity, work on the earth, affection, affection, full and radiant love… All this is not in vain, it is a foretaste, a sign and the way to your Home.
