Love conquers all.: BELGIUM!

9^th Stop: Brussels, Brugg, Belgium; Lille, France

Annemarie and Me

Do Brussel sprouts come from Brussels? I wonder...but anyhow I arrived after an amazing day in Amsterdam to the capital of Europe-Brussels. As I had mentioned that initially I didn’t have a place to stay in Brussels, but a lady named Annemarie at the Mariapolis (while I was in Luxembourg) offered me a place to stay at her home. I eventually found my way during the calm and silent streets of Brussels without a flicker of fear because I knew I would found my way. They welcomed me with such warmth and love that I felt right away at home, sipping a cup of orange juice as I rested my feet after hours in the sun walking endlessly carrying a 30 lb backpack.

The next day I was off to Brussels on a citybike with Annemarie and her husband Gilles. As we rode into the city centre, Brussels was empty, a few business people, hardly any tourists, as many were off to catch some sun as Brussels wavered at 16 degrees with cloudy skies. As we passed many stores, half of them closed, one caught my eye. I’ve been taking pictures of words or phrases that make me think. This one was “The art of living.” I had read a quote the day after on my friend’s facebook reading...

“To know how to die is to know how to live.”

So I thought of this: The art of dying is at the very core of the art of living.

TO DIE is TO LIVE.

Such a paradox, so opposite, yet so intertwined.

How can you know how to die and know how to live?

Let me share an experience...

Gilles, Grandmother, Me

That day at Brussels, we stopped at a nursing home to visit Gilles’ mother, an 87 year old woman. When you first enter into a nursing home, the scent of cleaning products, mixed with body odours, and other unpleasant smells gives a great impression. In my heart I was so excited to meet this woman. As I entered into her room, she lay silently on her bed. As I greeted her with the touch of her hand, I felt immediately welcomed as she expressed her joy by the simplicity of a smile. She barely spoke any English so I only could communicate without words. As I held her hand, she placed both of hers around mine and gently tapping up and down continuously. I said nothing, but continued to warm her hands and looked deeply into her eyes.

Many say that your eyes are the entrance of your soul, and so I allowed my eyes to stay focused on hers. In the deepest part of my heart, she brought the memory of my grandmother right before me. I wanted to treat and care for her like I do to my own, to give the love I have for my grandmother to her. But at the same time, I didn’t dwell on the memory of my grandmother, but saw the “grandmother” right before me. In her eyes, I understood she was treating me like one of her own, her own grandchild. Even though we weren’t family by blood, in the end we had become FAMILY.

I had experienced the “art of dying,” or in Buddhism, “sacrifice,” or in Christianity “giving one’s life,” or in Sikhism “Sewa: self-lessness or in Agnosticism or Atheism “detachment,” or in Islam “losing one’s life,” or in Hinduism “being of nothing.” I observed the art of dying is present in all beliefs, but expressed in different ways. All different ways, but at the same time trying to practice the same idea-the art of living.

In each moment of that eternal hour, “my grandmother” was giving all that she could, her whole life that existed within the eyes of her soul and giving her nothingness to just concentrate on each glance I made. I had sacrificed all that I wanted to do for that hour and detached myself of the memory of my own grandmother to care for the one infront of me. Nothing mattered more in those moments for me than to give Everything- my concern, attention, and LOVE for her. This was my experience of knowing how to die which gives way to know how to live.

“to be Nothing is Everything.”

To die in all my OWN preoccupations, OWN thoughts, OWN memories, OWN desires, but to live for the OTHER, for the person infront of me. This is what I mean by the art of dying is at the very core of the art of living. She helped me understand.

After visiting also her son in Lille, France the next day and her extended family in Brugg, Belgium the day after, I got a glimpse of her life. I flipped through pictures in albums of weddings, family gatherings, and all the rest. When I first saw pictures of her as she was young, she was beautiful and gorgeous with a perfect smile. Now her beauty lies not in the exterior, but the LOVE held WITHIN, the person she has become.

This love that radiates from inside is what’s left, what remains, what lasts, what continues on, what gives to the OTHER. All else fades, disappears, is forgotten, and dies, if there’s no LOVE that remains.

If we fill ourselves with all the things of the world materialism, consumerism, capitalism, egoism; they will give temporary life, temporary satisfaction, temporary happiness. This temporariness is when we find outlets of happiness-drugs and alcohol abuse/overdose, or having excess goods-clothes, electronics, cars, things etc., or concentrating only on profits and not people and the environment, putting ME first before OTHERS. To be SELFISH and not SELF-LESS. Sounds like the everyday media, news, society doesn’t it?

But Life is meant to be greater, to be lived for something GREATER, to give an eternal joy and an eternal happiness. So all the things of LOVE, with LOVE, done for LOVE, gives LIFE. This love lasts not temporarily but for eternity, this love marks, leaves an imprint on the OTHER’s heart.

What imprint do you want to leave?

To DIE is to LIVE. To Live is to Love. To Love is to be Nothing. To be Nothing is Everything.

I want to die to everything to live to be nothing.