(5) The Thousand-Year
Exercise: Imagine in detail what
would happen to a human being or a place in 100 years. You, your friends, your colleagues, your competitors, your spouse, your children. . . what has become of them in 100, 500, 1,000 years? Look at their mortal remains, which, when they are touched, turn to dust. Look at them scattered in the ground, sand and water, at home and in foreign lands. They died suddenly or through lingering ailments, they died as a result of an accident, were killed or killed in action. Every day choose a different person for this exercise and look at them from this point of view. ~ Then proceed to the localities. The house in which you live, the street, the part of the city you live in, the whole city, yes, even the country you live in, what will happen to these in 100, in 500, in 1,000 years?! Look at the houses where today you find gardens; the gardens where today you find houses. Look at the cities, desolate or totally gone, turned back to the forests which were there before the cities. You see deserts and prairies where once the pulse of large metropolitan cities was beating. Plants and animals have found new areas where man for a long time considered himself to be master over them. Who took all this away? Who changed it all, and who banished it into another form? Form and transformation are the only things you see. Only the tempo changes and only your sight is limited. And you once mourned over these transitory forms, or you were proud of them! Your life is nothing but a raging fall to your death. What tomfoolery and racket has this shameful insanity all around you made out of this moment of God?
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