a friend sent this to me...it made me think...

"WHEN I WAS A STUDENT, my principal in the high school
was continuously troubled by my absence from the
school. My family was troubled. I would start going to
school, but never reach there. Life was so much, and so
many things were happening on the way... and the school
was almost one mile away from the house.

The principal called me one day and said, "You are
almost always absent." I said, "That's where you are
wrong." He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "I am always
present wherever I am. To be absent is not my style of
life. And what can I do? -- this one mile between the
school and my house.... A magician was doing his
tricks on the street, and I became present there. It was
far more interesting than your teachers, and I learned
more than I could have learned here -- because whatever
your teacher is saying I can read in the book, but I
will never meet that magician again. And he did such
beautiful tricks that when he was finished I followed
him to his tent outside the city.

"He asked me, 'Son, why are you following me?' I said,
'You are getting old. Don't you want your tricks to
live on even when you are gone?' He said, 'That seems to
be meaningful! -- you can come in. Many people have
asked me to teach them the tricks, but not in this way.'
So I have been with the magician. "Life is a bigger
school than your school. And I am, each moment, present
wherever I am. To be absent is not my style of life,
so you please take your words back." He said, "In that
case I will have to see your father." I said, "You can
see anybody you like, but remember that my father
knows me perfectly well. Just let me be informed when you
are coming so I can also be present there. You both
will be absent -- because my father is continuously busy
with his business, and you are busy with who is
absent, who is present. At least let somebody into that
meeting who is present!" I told him, "Be honest and
sincere and tell me: Are you present right now?" He said,
"My God, perhaps you
are right. I was thinking of my buffalo -- she has
not returned for two days." I said, "You need not be
worried, I know where she is. That's the beauty of being
present everywhere! I have seen her just by the side
of the tent of the magician. Now what do you say: Was
it more worthwhile my coming to the class, or finding
your lost buffalo? You can go and catch hold of her."

People are not there where they seem to be. This is
why they go on missing the meaning of life. Just remain
present to any small act you are doing. It does not
matter -- you don't have to do great acts, become a
world conqueror, go to the moon, or stand on top of
Everest; it does not matter what you do.

Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing -- or not
doing -- be present, and the meaning of life will
start unfolding. It is tremendously blissful.

But don't seek it somewhere else -- in a church, in a
temple, in a holy book. You will not find it. Even if
you come across God -- who, by the way, does not exist
-- but even if you come across God, you will not be
present. You may be thinking of your buffalo. It is good
that God is not there; otherwise, he would be so
embarrassed by all these saints of all the religions,
because none of them is present to the moment. They are
living a life somewhere else in the tomorrows -- and
today goes on slipping by, and the tomorrow never comes.
Finally comes death, not tomorrow.

Life is today! Tomorrow is death. So when you come
across death, it is a great shock that life has gone by
and you have not been able to find any meaning in it.
And now there is no tomorrow left, and you are
accustomed to search for meaning in the tomorrows. But you
have been told about, taught about, prepared for,
tomorrows.

If you understand me... I want you always to be
present wherever you are. It does not matter where you are;
just be totally present, and every small act, by your
presence, will become lighted up, and you will know
that your whole life becomes just a caravan of lights.
That's the meaning. Death comes and goes, but the
caravan continues. "

this is how i feel...

MEANING CAN BE understood in two ways. There is
meaning that is somewhere far away, you have to reach to it.
It is extrinsic.

Life is not meaningful in this first sense. And it is
good that life is not meaningful in that sense,
because then life becomes only a means to reach to the
faraway goal, the faraway star. Then life loses its
autonomous beauty. It is just a way; the real thing is
tomorrow.

Meaning has another category too: intrinsic. Life is
tremendously meaningful in the second sense. Then
meaning is not separate, somewhere else; then meaning is in
the very living itself.

You don't ask, has love any meaning? You know love is
itself meaningful, it is not a means to some end. You
do not ask if the beauty of a rose is meaningful. The
beauty itself is enough; it does not lead anywhere, it
contains its meaning within itself.

In existence everything that is really valuable is
always intrinsically meaningful. And life is equivalent
to existence. Life has meaning. If you just change the
word "life" into "living," you will be able to
understand more easily. Living has meaning -- each moment --
because living is not something dead like "life." The
word "life" is dead -- all nouns are dead. But the
language is created by dead people.

Some day the new man is going to create a language
which consists only of verbs, because that will be
authentic to existence. In existence there is no noun. Have
you seen "life"? Have you met "life" anywhere? All
that you meet, experience, is living.

Sipping a cup of tea, going for a morning walk, doing
your work -- all these small activities make up your
living. And each part, each moment of living, is
meaningful. You just have to be there; otherwise, who is
going to experience the meaning?

People go on drinking tea, but they never are there;
their minds are wandering all over the world. People
are making love, but they are not there. It is a very
strange world that we have created. In one bedroom there
are at least four people. Already the bedrooms are so
small, too difficult for two people; and in the bed
there are four people, or even more. These two people
who are making love are not there: the man is thinking
of some Hollywood actress, the woman is thinking of
Muhammad Ali. So there are four people. Who is making
love to whom? These two people are simply going through
the gestures of love -- they are not present --
mechanical gestures of love. And then they ask, "Is there any
meaning in life?"

You go on losing every moment by your absence.

yes, the caravan continues.....

this is about spookin' in ft scott for jess; but, first of all, you need to understand that i grew up in ft scott, kansas. it is an old time precivil war fort. it was the last fort on the western line before indian territory. the entire area of ft scott is very psychicly charged. many rumors, many hotbeds of multiple sightings and experiences. we usd to go spooking almost every night, purposely searching out those spots to see if they were all they were rumored to be.

one night, myself, michael-my ex, tom, and jimmy (we also had my minie eskimo dog, vince with us) went spooking to a place where an old bridge used to be outside of town. it was a 3 quarter moon, cloudless, very bright. we pulled up to the baffle that is used to block the road since the bridge is no longer in existence, turned off the car, and decided to just sit and commune with the night. after a while, tom started complaining because it was so dark and he could not see anything. michael also agreed...they were on the driver's side of the car, but it was tom's car. jimmy and i kept asking them what the hello they were talking about since we could see just fine on our side. no trees, no big brush, clear road and clear ground all around. after a bit, we started talking about other things, just visiting, when there was an odd, almost rotten fish smell suddenly pervading the car. jimmy rolled up his window, which had been partially rolled down. but the smell got stronger and stronger. suddenly, the hair on the back of my neck, to the right, and i felt this amazing compulsion to duck away like someone was there. vince, my dog, had been laying in the back window behind my right shoulder as well and he started to whine and slinked over to the other side of the car and down in michael's lap. michael hated vince and vince hated michael. extremely, and here vince was, cowering in michal's lap, crying. when i told the guys that it was getting worse and i was really wondering what the heck, they decided to leave. as we started the car, and the headlights went on, you could see a shadow moving along the edge of the baffle. large, slightly stooped, and seeming to ahve no fear....but it had no shape, no form...no matter how hard you looked-focused-you could not make out any features. tom said to heck with this and started to back up to where he could do a three point turn, and something slammed into the poassenger side door, by jimmy, and there was a horrible scraping sound. but there was nothing to see, and as we continued to drive, you could see nothing that he could have accidentally hit. as we turned around, jimmy gasped and said look at the moon. the 3 quarter moon had turned blood red and looked amazingly like a dragon's eye, so i thought. the feeling of something sitting over my shoulder stayed with me for about 2 miles, and as i said that i was starting to feel much clearer, freer in my chest, vince snapped at michael and walked into my lap, licked me, and crawled back in the window like nothing ever happened.

when we got to a gas station to check out the car and pee (do you blame us?sheesh!), we saw that the door was dented in and there were four long scratches downward like something had scraped from just below the window to just above the bottom of the door. if we hadscraped something, there would have been horizontal scratches! we went back the next day in daylight, and traced the road. there was nothing to scrape the side of the car, and where we turned around, there was a long scrape of gravel about the width of a person and a half, from the edge of the grass to about 3 feet into the road...and ended next to where tom kind of spun out a nd threw some gravel in his haste to turn after we were hit.

i dunno, you judge.