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Bryan Tuk's avatar

Erik, this piece is really moving. Bravo...

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Gracie's avatar

Beautiful, tear-jerking post.

> The opposite of Maya is Brahman, or absolute reality. It’s not on any map, but, as Melville said, “true places never are.” For you can indeed find Brahman, or, far more likely, it finds you. Some sterile space with florescent lighting and coffee in little cardboard cups from a break room with vending machines. That’s where Life actually happens, because that’s where Death actually happens.

This section made me think of Disney World as Maya to the extreme, where an experience is even more fabricated than normal life, to the extent that "no one has ever died in Disney World". The staff uses secret tunnels to move bodies beyond the property before declaring them dead.

I've never really thought of life happening at places like Disney, where so many corporate and individual resources are needed to forget our cares for 2-3 days. The dialogue on Maya and Brahman helps give context, that life can only exist where death also exists.

Not to get hippie dippie, but does that make being in a forest more real than a theme park, where death and life are rapidly cycling all at once? Or even my bedroom with the dust as the only remaining representative of who knows what.

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