Endings

For the millionth time, it seems, I have embraced an "ending." Again.

I have been preparing for the ultimate "ending" . . . for a long time . . . and anybody who knows me well (and has any clue about my spiritual path and my studies) knows what I'm talking about. Meher Baba described his Manifestation in many ways, and referred to this period in history as Kaliyuga . . . and Baba people have been pondering the meaning of these terms (or really should have been) since he began discussing them nearly a century ago. All of this, after a lifetime of hearing my Christian friends prepare for "Armageddon" or "Rapture" or "The Second Coming of Christ" . . . the Y2K scare, the 911 scare, the Muslim "jihad," and on and on and on about "the end."

The END of what??? The end of TIME?? The end of the WORLD?? or simply the END of pain and suffering??

In minute ways, all my life, I have approached my goals as if they were indeed the "end" of my life. I have said to myself, so many times, things like "Ok, God. I intend to graduate from college in 4 years. If I do that, I will be able to die happy." And, I did it. And, when I did, I told God "I am happy now," and I prepared to die. But, after waiting for a while to see what would happen, I never actually died. So, I had to come up with a new goal or two along the way. One of those goals was to get a good job at a very prestigious university here in the Boston area . . . which I did, after a quite strenuous effort. But, upon reaching that goal, again I said "Ok! I'm happy. I can die, now." Again, no death. Time for a new goal.

I won't get into how painful life became after a while, and how for so long I was actually begging for death, and how even happiness no longer mattered . . . only death. So, truly, the worry over Armageddon and all that "end of the world" stuff really never got to me so much. My world ended for me on a daily basis — every time I woke up in the morning — for *years.*

Finally, though, there seemed to be some intriguing aspects to actually staying alive. Of course, there was always my daughter and the commitment I had to being as good a mother as I could, despite my history of depression. So, happiness in motherhood was always there and always a saving grace. And after my divorce, there were several long term relationships that offered some relief and glimpses into possible happiness. But, what I found out about relationships with the men in my life was that the only way to survive them with any happiness intact was to actually *end* them as soon as possible.

The relationships I have been through, and have ended peacefully, seem to have finally prepared me somehow to live freely *without* a relationship at all. Despite all the drive I had to "be in love" or "get married" . . . it was the freeing myself of these wishes, not the indulgence in them, that actually brought the peace and relief. At a time in my life where one of these temptations seems to have started up again,  I am again shedding myself of this age-old and somewhat crusty "need" and searching for an ending before there is even a beginning. It is the only way I am able to face Kaliyuga on my own . . . my own personal Armageddon . . . my interior Jihad . . . the shedding of the low desires in search of something higher and more meaningful. I pray that it, eventually, allows me to *actually* die happy.

Peace, friends. Shalom.