Response:

It sounds like you have been living a rich and interesting life journey. The unspoken implication in your letter is that at 61 you should have arrived at your destination or should have settled upon one teaching with full confidence. But in my experience, that is not a realistic or even necessarily a healthy model for spiritual growth. Once people have decided that they have “arrived” or found the final teaching, they tend to stop thinking, questioning, and growing. In spite of your confusion on what you have accomplished in life, I suspect you have learned a great deal about yourself, people and life in general that you would not have learned if you had settled for a life of strictly conventional values and goals. I wouldn’t characterize you as a hungry ghost, maybe more a hungry traveler, hungry for knowledge and healing wherever you may find it. The point is not to reach a destination or stop being hungry, it is to find happiness and peace in the very gathering of experience. I think that is a better model for you.

Love,

Deepak