It Took A Terrible Accident To Wake Us Up To How Precious and Uncertain Life Really Is
Life is a precious opportunity—let’s not take it for granted but use it for important things while we can still Love, serve and make a difference
THE DAWNING LIGHT # 116 Thursday May 18, 2023
SPIRITUAL SOUP KITCHEN Section # 10
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Sunrise on Still Mountain“
One of the most important lessons that informs and empowers my life is knowing that all that I love and care about, all that I am doing or want to do with this life can be taken from me in “the blink of an eye.”
I don’t take life or the love or any of the good and great things flowing through my days now for granted.
I gave up many things on my spiritual journey once I recognized that, though I may believed them for years or held them unconsciously as truths, they were delusions and illusions with absolutely no truth.
I used to live as if this body would always be young and live forever.
I have seen that though we all know with certainty that everything that is born will someday die, we don’t believe it will ever happen to us!
All the masters I have ever trained with taught that facing the truths of life as they really are is the only path to personal transformation and empowerment.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Full Moon Rising Over Still Mountain”
As Kalu Rinpoche says in “Morning Puja” for daily meditation…
“You never know which will come first—
Tomorrow or the next world.
Since nothing but the Dharma
Is even a hair tip’s help
At the time of death,
Practice the supreme Dharma
Without delay….
Everything is impermanent,
Wrapped in the Four Ends—
The end of all building is ruin,
The end of all accumulation is dispersion,
The end of all meeting is parting,
The end of all birth is death.”
I have seen more than enough of the realities of life to ignore these truths.
I see life lived from these spiritual truths to be one long wake up call which I am doing my best to heed and be inspired to use to love, serve and awaken to the best of my ability.
Life itself is an extremely precious limited time opportunity.
Photo Credit: Nyima Fitzmaurice “Exploring Backroads In The Sierras”
AN UNEXPECTED ACCIDENT WITH TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES
Let me share a story which made this very real for me…
A few years ago, when my son was still a boy, his mom and I shared custody equally. Twice a week, I would drive one and a half hours south of Still Mountain to the half way point between our two homes for “transfers” of our son’s coming and going.
One night, we had a family dinner which kept us out much later than normal, as the three of us were enjoying the food and our rare shared time as a family.
It was after midnight when my son and I headed back north in my truck. We had been doing “transfers” for years, so driving the long winding highway through hill and dale at night to get back to Still Mountain was normal for us.
My son was asleep beside me as we crested a steep hill and came down the other side going 65 miles per hour.
I am grateful that I had trained myself to be hyper alert driving this section of the highway because of the many close calls of almost hitting deer who often jumped into the road.
It was a pitch black, moonless night and my old truck’s headlights didn’t illuminate much of the road ahead, even when on “bright” mode.
Suddenly, I saw a small car sitting sideways to traffic in the middle of my lane.
By the time I saw it, I was already very close.
After slamming on the brakes and turning the steering wheel hard to the right, we missed the car by inches. I was shaking with grateful relief as we came to a stop.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Dawn on Still Mountain”
I could see someone slumped over the steering wheel of the little car from the light of our head lamps shining into it.
I pulled off onto the shoulder on the right side of the highway, grabbed my big torch and flare kit and ran across the empty freeway to the car.
I knew there was a grave danger that another car or big truck coming over the crest of the hill and hitting the car and me.
I quickly laid down a chain of flares up the hill and around the car. Soon, another driver stopped and jumped out to lay more flares and warn oncoming traffic. A third car stopped and I yelled to the driver ‘Call 911!”
By then, my son had woken up and was calling for me. After having him run to me across the empty highway, we went back to the sideways car to check on the driver.
As soon as we came up to his window, which was cranked open on this hot summer night, I knew instinctively that he was dead.
The front of the car was smashed in, but the middle-aged man in the driver’s seat had no obvious injuries..not even a cut or any bleeding. I learned the full story of what happened that night from a Highway Patrol officer later.
The driver was the manager of a big box store in a nearby town who, after closing the store late at night, headed home as he did most nights, back to his wife and family.
He was wearing his seatbelt as he drove north through the ink dark night. He was passed by an 18 wheel tractor trailer truck, whose driver was speeding because he was behind schedule.
Unknown to either one of the drivers, a large cow had gotten out of a big ranch’s pasture which bordered the freeway through a break in the fence and wandered out onto the warm pavement just as the speeding truck came over the crest of the hill.
The driver had no time to even tap his brakes and hit the cow with the leading edge of his front bumper, killing it instantly and throwing its big, bulky dead body into the middle of the next lane.
Photo Credit: Nyima Fitzmaurice “OnA Mountain Top In The Sierras”
The truck driver was in such a hurry and felt under so much pressure that he didn’t stop for another hundred miles until reaching his company’s terminal.
When he checked for damage, he found the bumper had been bent and twisted, and after filing a report, went home thinking it was no big deal.
Meanwhile, back on the freeway, the manager on his way home to what he must have thought was his warm bed, came over the crest of the hill at full speed and hit the dead cow’s body.
The impact was so severe that his neck was broken, had a massive heart attack and died still strapped to the driver’s seat.
When I came to his window, he looked as if he had just gone to sleep but I could not find a pulse.
It was a shock, and a seminal moment for my son and I as we saw a human being who had just passed from this world.
Soon, we hear sirens approaching from north and south as the highway patrol and ambulances arrived and took over the accident scene.
The Lesson Is To Not Take Anything In Life For Granted
My son and I talked about it as we drove home—that the driver must have had no idea that tonight was going to be his last, that he would not be coming home anymore and how that would impact his loved ones.
It gave both of us a new appreciation for the fragility and preciousness of life…
and the profound lesson that remains our “takeaway” is—to not take anything in life for granted especially the precious opportunity we still have to love and share time with our loved ones.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan “ Rainbow Arch On The Way Back To Still Mountain”
Original Rumi Translation and Calligraphy by Chinmayan
Image Credit: Still Mountain Meditation Center
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From our hearts to yours…
Never miss a chance to tell your beloved that you love them and why and what they mean to you…
You never know when we may get another chance in this wild and beautiful world!
Thank you for the story. What a miracle life is.