"Even in the darkest darkness of the night, the sun still shines. It is only your narrow point of view that makes it appear otherwise." Happy Cow
About 2 turns on the Solar Merry-Go-Round ago, I wrote an article which explored the origins of the English word 'ECSTASY'. Another word very often associated with that word, more or less its opposite, is the word 'AGONY'.
Today I have decided to have a wander over to the word garden, with my trusty thought trowel, to see if we can dig up the word 'AGONY' and have a little look at its roots.
Well, well, well! Take a look at that! It turns out that the English word 'AGONY' has its roots in the Ancient Greek word 'AGONIA' (don't ask how I spot these things, it is a gift I inherited from my mother). The Greek word 'AGONIA' meant 'a (mental) struggle for victory'.
If you have read my original article Ecstasy, then jolly good, you can jump a couple of paragraphs. (But seriously, what on Earth are you doing with your life?) If not, perhaps you would like to go and have a read of it now, as it will be rather relevant to the rest of this article. For those of you who, quite frankly, find it hard to get through one article, never mind two, I will briefly summarise.
The English word 'ECSTASY' derives from the Ancient Greek word EKSTASIS, which means 'to stand outside oneself'. In the article I suggested that the feelings which we often refer to as 'ecstatic' tend to correspond with moments when we let go of that separate personal 'self' and taste the sudden expansion into Infinite One Being.
It seems no surprise that these two antonyms are so strongly associated in English.
If One is strongly identified with that personal self, then life will seem like a struggle, and one which cannot be won. A constant battle against all that is 'other' than you. And even if all goes reasonably well, after 80, 90, perhaps even a hundred or so years, that battle will inevitably be lost and death will overcome the body with which the personal self is associated. Such is the agony of the Human Condition - a century-long struggle both physical and mental, only to end up as so much fertilizer.
"Wooooaah there, Misery Horse!" I hear some of you thinking. "Come on, Pete, cut to the cheery bit!"
OK then, I will! As Life eternally unfolds, You, as its ever-present witness, have a very simple choice, between the agony and the ecstasy. Your infinite consciousness is in no way contained by any body or any 'person'. Any time You like, You can choose to step outside that personal self and be free from the struggle. And any time you like you can choose to step back in again.
I am not bothered about arguing that one is the 'right' choice and the other is 'wrong'. That is not the point. The point is simply that there is a choice. Always a choice, between the agony and the ecstasy, between the struggle and effortlessness, between being someone or something in particular or just Being.
Freedom is eternally Yours. How will You choose today?
"If the whole existence is one, and if the existence goes on taking care of trees, of animals, of mountains, of oceans -from the smallest blade of grass to the biggest star -- then it will take care of you too. Why be possessive? The possessiveness shows simply one thing - that you cannot trust existence. You have to arrange separate security for yourself, safety for yourself; you cannot trust existence. Non-possessiveness is basically trust in existence. There is no need to possess, because the whole is already ours." Osho
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