By The Time You Read This I'll Be Someone Else And So Will You

I've often ruminated on the thought that we are many different people during one life time. We only have to look at photos to see this. Our beliefs and opinions also change as we learn from life.

A few days ago I came across an article on the Global One website about a man who spat on the face of Buddha and the next day went to ask him for forgiveness:

Buddha said, "Forgive? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every man is a river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you.

And you also are new. I can see you are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the same man? You are not the same man, so let us forget about it. Those two people, the man who spit and the man on whom he spit, both are no more."

It's easy to understand that we are many different people because of how our body changes - and parts of it quite quickly. Our liver, for example, is only about five months old and other bits of us are being replaced over and over, such as:

Taste buds replaced after 6 months; heart every 20 years; lungs 2-3 weeks; skin 2-4 weeks; bones every 20 years; intestines 2-3 days; red blood cells 4 months; hair 5-6 years; stomach lining 5 days and so it goes on.

So parts of us are older than others. Strangely though, the number of brain cells or neurons, which transmit impulses, stays the same. Amazingly there are as many as there are stars in our galaxy - about 100 billion. Can that be by coincidence?

Where it all gets difficult is how the mind fits into all of this. Oh, and then there is a soul or spirit to consider as well - if you believe in such a thing.

If we damage our brain this can effect our personality which means it must have also damaged our mind - and therefore the soul too?

For example in his book The Tale Of The Duelling Neurosurgeons Sam Kean tells the true story about how a family man, with an undiagnosed brain tumour, became a paedophile. But once the tumour was removed by surgery he returned to 'normal'. Brain damage can alter personalities, can make make people who were gentle become aggressive and so on.

It appears we are therefore at the mercy of our brain neurons.

If something like Alzheimer's should come our way do we recover our original mind once we move onto the next life (assuming you believe there is a next life)? And if so what particular stage of mind?

It's interesting as to how the delicate brain, mind and soul can fit together without conflict. And, of course, you have to ask who or what is doing the asking?

But, whatever, by the time you read this I'll be someone else and so will you.

Other Random Recent Posts:
Discovering Old Cornwall - 4 - Truro
The Rules For Revolution: Fact Or Coincidence Today
Look Out The Yeti Has Returned

The Torturer Is Forgiven As The Hating Has To Stop

It's strange how things came about, this post for example.

By 'chance' I read here that Colin Firth is set to star in a film called The Railway Man based on a book of the same name by Eric Lomax. Filming is to start this month (February 2012).

The The Railway Man is a true story that tells of how Eric Lomax's early obsession for steam railways is ironically linked to World War II where he became a prisoner of war on the notorious Burma Railroad. Here he was tortured by the Japanese and witnessed dreadful war crimes.

I then came across a coincidence from Peter Wright.

Peter, another railway enthusiast, explained: "I was recently given a box of books on railways by someone who knew I was interested in railways and discovered a first edition of The Railway Man complete with its cover."

It's always nice to own or find a first edition of a book, but there is more to this. Peter mentioned his good fortune to his brother, who then discovered that his daughter Diane knew Eric Lomax the book's author.

Mr. Lomax often used the library where Diane worked as a librarian in Berwick-on-Tweed. After a few phone calls Diane was able to arrange for Peter's copy of The Railway Man to be signed by Eric Lomax, who is now in his 90s.

All well and good but then I happened on a website called, the forgiveness project, which is a subject that has interested me recently. And who do I come across, but an article by Eric Lomax about how he met Nagase Takashi who was his torturer and interrogator in World War II.

Eric Lomax and Nagase Takashi met in Thailand in 1988. Mr Lomax writes of this experience:

"When we met Nagase greeted me with a formal bow. I took his hand and said in Japanese, 'Good Morning Mr Nagase, how are you?' He was trembling and crying, and he said over and over again: 'I am so sorry, so very sorry.' I had come with no sympathy for this man, and yet Nagase, through his complete humility, turned this around. In the days that followed we spent a lot of time together, talking and laughing. It transpired that we had much in common. We promised to keep in touch and have remained friends ever since." You can read the full article here.

The big lesson for the world today is how Eric Lomax ends his article: "Some time the hating has to stop."

Sometimes things are brought to our attention for a reason.

Further World War II Posts:
67 Years After The D-Day Landings They Meet By Coincidence
World War 2 Coincidences With Happy Endings
They Meet Up Again After 67 Years