One In The Same

"The world, friend Govinda, is not perfect or on a slow journey toward perfection; no, it is perfect every moment; all sin already bears its forgiveness within itself; every little boy already bears the old man within himself, every infant bears death, every dying man bears eternal life. No one is able to look at someone else and know how far along on his journey he is; in the highwayman and dice player lurks a Buddha, in the Brahman lurks the highwayman." p. 77 Siddhartha

The quote from Siddhartha, implies that every emotion, every action already presides in each individual aspect of life. You aren't born either good or bad. You aren't either a success or a failure. You aren't either shy or outgoing. You're everything at once. Everything is inside you just waiting to be let out. What we see as an outside observer is one particular emotion or action at one time. I does not mean you are always that way. It simply means you expressed that part of you at that moment. Everyone has the potential to be everything.

Living in a western society, we as a group do not think in this mindset. We tend to believe that first impressions can tell us almost anything about a person. But based on Siddhartha, a first impression only reveals the specific emotion that person held at that time. Judging someone on your first meeting can be quite deceitful. However, in America, we think life is a journey and depending on where you are, it will determine who you are at that point in life.