where two or three are gathered ...

inside the mall several days ago, i decided to pass the time away while awaiting my daughter by having some coffee in one of its several doughnut parlors. it was one of those little doughnut nooks perched right in the middle of the mall's main aisle and its several small tables are spread over an allotted area of the aisle. this allows diners to have a view of the nearby shops and to see and be seen by the mall visitors going by that route.

i chose to sit at the table farthest from the cashier. this parlor has quite a lot of regular patrons and there is always somebody doing a transaction at the cashier's spot. i really don't mind them but most times my daughter takes too long to arrive so i learned to make use of  the waiting time either to read a book i brought or to quietly do some impromptu meditation after i've consumed my coffee. coffee's rather  pricey at these doughnut parlors i can only allow myself a cup except of course if there's  free refill. what's great about these shops is that they allow you to stay longer even if there are just four drops of coffee in your cup and half-a-hole of doughnut in your plate. they know you're waiting for someone. perhaps the owner knows most of his regulars will be "waiters" that's why he opted to situate his shop in this part of the promenade.

after a while, i noticed three men sitting at the table near me. one has a crew-cut hair almost gray all over, the other has his long hair in a ponytail topped by a red baseball cap, the third is your typical retiree with horn-rimmed glasses and the usual folded business paper tucked underneath his right armpit. i believe it is a good guess to say all were retirees. the way they hold their cup of coffee and the way they sip, taking all the time in the world to do it, tells me that they most probably have stashed a good chunk of material acquisitions to be this confident and secure.

i could not help but tune in into their conversation. they talked about members of their families: wives going on a foreign country and doing some unnecessary shopping, a son or a daughter still adjusting to married life and life away from home, grandkids having a blast every time they come over for a visit. they relished exchanging these personal notes. a good portion of their conversation though focused on two things: health and wealth. they exchanged experiences on what their state of health is now, what maintenance pills they are taking and how much of their good fortune goes to the drug store and the doctors they regularly visit now. how they could have avoided this had they followed a different lifestyle in those days bygone. there is much shaking of heads as they go over their health issues. then, this concern for their good fortunes, their material acquisitions. there is this fear of leaving these behind unsure whether their families will be able to sustain and maintain these. they went over the various means on how their families can do this once they are no longer in control. the longer they talked about these, the more they uncovered issues that might cause further problems. there is also so much shaking of heads over these.

exhaustedly, the guy with the ponytail blurted out loudly and seemed to have wrapped up their solution, "WE'RE DEAD BY THEN, RIGHT? SO, WHY DO  WE BOTHER WORRYING?"

i believe he hit the nail on the head. as the Old Sages had taught and reminded, one cannot carry the products of the material world after death. so why bother to fray one's nerves about them. let those who will inherit these be the ones to think about these. if they will not be able to preserve these or build on these, that will be their burden.

i remembered i myself had just recently met with long time friends some weeks ago. like these three men, my friends are also well-off and well-established now in their lives. secure and confident in their material acquisitions. no, we never talked about material gains and how to preserve them or acquire more. we focused on what we need to do on these coming years of our lives. we talked about the Divine Spark. what we are doing to make It more manifest in our lives. we talked about getting a "culture" -- go back to doing Music, or learning Painting, write Poetry. things that we love to do, which we were doing only half-halfheartedly before should be done wholeheartedly now. the remaining years of this existence must be devoted to expressing the True Self.

we are Divine and we should be able to fully realize this. there's still time.

when we were young, we formed a band but we never got to play good rock and roll. we promised to practice during these forthcoming months and hopefully get-together by december this year.

we're looking forward to Rock, to Roll, to sing the Blues, to enjoy ...