When I stepped onto the beach today, I found myself immediately standing before what looked like a spontaneous art gallery exhibition. It is winter holiday time here on the sunny southernmost shores of Africa, and the warm sun lies low in the sky.
With the schools on holiday now, there are loads of kids about with their parents enjoying the beautiful beach and mild Mediterranean Climate. It looks like there was a little beach party here recently because, although I never saw the gathering, I do see the results. Loads of kids had presumably come to the beach and made lots of sculptures in the soft white beach sand.
Walking about the makeshift outdoor art gallery, I'm able to admire the sculptures in the sand, molded into all sorts of shapes, and decorated with shells and bits of bush or driftwood.
I particularly admire the finely sculpted seahorse, since these unusual prehistoric looking creatures are indigenous to this region of the Cape south coast of Africa. They are a rare endangered species now, found in the nearby lagoon and river estuary in this beautiful paradise called Plettenberg Bay.
I can also see sculpted whales, since this is where the whales come annually to take shelter in the winter while giving birth to their young. The whales should be here in coming days and are an integral part of the marine ecosystem in this bay.
Besides that the young artists have also sculpted some nice sand castles, since this stretch of shoreline is home to some fortunate souls who have built their castles here along these shores.
Of course all the art sculpted here today will be washed away at the next high tide. Including the castles made of sand, which all slip into the sea eventually, as the great 1960s musician Jimi Hendrix once sang.
Indeed we all build our castles and our dreams while we have the energy of youth, be they homesteads, businesses or inventions. And then time comes along and washes them away into the annals of history, where they become a memory of something once solid but now ephemeral.
"Time and tide wait for no man" as the saying goes. And here as I look at the artistic sculptures on the beach, I'm reminded - as the tide washes up the sand - that this too shall pass. These sculptures will vanish, and in fact time and tide will wash us all away one day.
How fleeting life seems, especially with each passing day, and as we get older. Our time grows shorter by the day and the end ever closer, at least for this chapter. Perhaps another chapter awaits us on the next page. You realize this more and more with age, not so much in youth.
Bigger castles also being swept away by time
So I enjoy each day as it passes, savoring the moment, being in the present, here on this beautiful beach. And I'm obliged to re-evaluate everything in life. It all seems so crucial in youth, but with age things seems to become less important. Like these sand sculptures, our lives, deeds and possessions all get washed away by time and appear to be of little importance in its grand cycles.
The wise man or woman is like a child building sandcastles on the beach. We expend great energy and attention on our creations, using the resources available to us. Yes we know that when the day is done we can happily walk away from them, seeing them as castles made of sand, which will be swallowed by the sea eventually.
Some souls attempt to leave a legacy, like the pyramids found in numerous countries all over the planet, so that when time takes them, their monuments remain to remind future generations of their greatness. Some write books which - if they're lucky - remain behind to teach us, like the ancient Sanskrit Vedic texts of India.
But we don't have that ability to defy time or tide. Our time is limited. Great yogis can of course extend their time, and records tell of mystics who practiced the art of yoga for decades, and by mastering the techniques were able to live longer than you can imagine. These techniques exist. The Yogi simply needs to slow down the breathing and perfect the meditation whereby the pineal gland is stimulated to release the hormones which are able to stop aging.
But what do we know? In our modern age this all sounds to us like a child's fantasy story. So be it. We only comprehend what we're able to grasp with our conditioned minds in the modern world. We build our castles made of sand and they slip, like us, into the sea, swept away by time and tide.
Yet all along, the ancient yoga texts have been trying to remind us of the real business of this human form of life. Namely to focus on the eternal, on the long game, not the temporary and fleeting ephemera of mere survival. We are more than these temporary bodies, the Sanskrit texts tell us.
We don't have to be washed away with each passing tide, but have the ability to live on, either in this very body if you know the yoga techniques, or in our eternal spirit body, called "jivatma" in Sanskrit. Either way, the affairs of the person involved in day to day survival are like those of a child building sandcastles on the beach, compared to the bigger picture, or the real business of the mature mind or enlightened soul.
Beach baba aka Bitcoin Babaji
It's up to us where we choose to place our attention, where we choose to find meaning or value in this temporary world. Personally I'm not much of a builder, more of a dreamer. In my dream I'm laying foundations for eternity, to stand the test of time and tide. And they are getting stronger by the day.
Photos my own. Written and published via my mobile device onto the Hive blockchain from the beach.