If we do not make an effort, how can we change? The most important thing is not to identify ourselves with external circumstances. Life is like a movie that in fact has a beginning and an end. Different scenes are constantly passing through the screen of the mind. The most serious error within us is to identify ourselves with these scenes. Why? Simply because they pass. They are just scenes of a great movie and in the end they always pass. ~ Samael Aun Weor

Not long ago I have read a transcript of a talk of Samael Aun Weor in which he, among other things, writes about the passing of things in this world. Even though I already have a certain undertanding of how we shouldn’t react to things when we find ourselves in situations that seems endless, I was still touched by his childhood story:

“Our father forbade us from visiting our earthly mother. Nevertheless we were not so ungrateful as to forget her. I used to always escape from my house with a younger brother who would always follow me. We would go for a short visit, then return back home, but my little brother suffered a lot because when we returned he would be very tired and I would have to carry him on my back. While crying he said, ‘when we get home Dad is going to whip us.’ I would say back, ‘Why do you cry? Remember that everything passes.’

“When we got home as expected, our father would be waiting for us angry, and then he would whip us. Then we would go to our room to sleep and while we laid in bed I would say to my brother, ‘you see it has already passed, because everything passes… everything passes.’

“One day our father heard me when I said to my brother ‘everything passes… everything passes…’ and of course my father who used to be very wrathful got again his terrible whip and came into our room and said ‘now then, everything passes does it… you rascals!’ and then he spanked us once more. My father then, felt calm and satisfied. Then seeing that he had left us I would whisper to my brother: “You see, also this has already passed.”

~ excerpt from Samael’s talk The Knowledge of Oneself

The more we age, the more we perceive the passage of time, and it seems to us as if it flies by. Few hours become like an elusive moment, a year like a dissolving box within which we want to achieve our goals. Every situation will pass – every pleasure, every painful moment, the long awaited time of excitment and exhiliration, which is so often mistaken for happiness. Therefore, like Samael mentions, why identifying with it? It is an event that we are experiencing, from which we could get great knowledge and virtue, provided we use a given situation for our own inner work, for exctrating the light from the darkness, regardless if the situation is painful or pleasant.

Everythingwill pass, all of our worries, fears, prides, career aspirations, family responsibilities, ups, lows, moments of inspiration, moments we awaited for so long…

By turning inwardly we start searching for that which is imperishable, that which lasts, for that spark of light which is life within a human being; that which animates him – the consciousness. And in the greater scheme of things, when everything in life is passing away, that spark is always there, like a small child, awaiting its time to grow and develop. And its up to us to do it…