I have in mind a two-way flow between ourselves and our reality.
I previously said: “The way we occasionally sense the indescribable can only mean that we and the unseen are in constant communication and that, in fact, ours is a two-way street.”
It doesn’t matter what we call it, the indescribable, the unseen, or nothingness; it all means the same thing—calling it the infinite works, too. It contrasts with our finiteness.
As I run, I can feel someone watching me from behind. I turn around to look for the source of this unease. But there is no one. Or maybe, for you, it was this feeling of not being fully in your body even as you were engaged in a day’s activities.
What are the implications of such perceptions?
Of course, we can continue living as though we have felt nothing. We can certainly do that, even if at the expense of our sanity or happiness.
And, as noted in an earlier post, consciousness isn’t of the body. So, was it our consciousness watching us or observing us from a distance? Was it a glimmer of the hidden reality or simply my hallucination?
Is consciousness a whole different other thing? Are we, in fact, part of this consciousness that resides beyond the body?
It makes no sense unless we are not just the body like we think but are also beyond it.
If, while gripped by the ego, we reach out to embrace the infinite—in the sense that we run toward it, instead of away from it, have we gained or lost anything?
We think we are either the center of the world or we are nothing. While we may be truly nothing, we are also everything as we, being nothing, also channel the world, nay, the universe.
In Stillness in the Roar of Experience, I observed:
“Are life and death even meaningful concepts? Do we really live and then die and disappear, as everyone says?
“How can we be sure of anything if the full extent of reality forever evades our understanding?
“Is it hard to accept that there are no edges or non-centers and that everywhere is the center of consciousness?”
Maybe that is the whole point. When I am trapped in my ego, consciousness is nowhere to be found. When the ego has been trimmed, consciousness begins to show itself here and there.
Is it incurable arrogance to think that you are like gods? On the contrary, it is the humblest thing to say. Being a “god” won’t do anything for you. When you are an ego, you are egoic. When you are as gods, you are no longer you, so how can you be arrogant?
Are you at a stage of your life where you are frustrated by illness, any unfortunate event, or lack of success or happiness? The worst frustration is that you must die. Use those frustrations.
Are you frustrated being stuck on a track? Use that, too.
Have you ever been on the verge of having an orgasm and held back? (The Taoists have entire texts on what they called sexual alchemy.)
Or, do what a plant does naturally: turning itself to the sun. A flower merges with the sun. The merging, we imagine, must be intense and immediate. Is that something we can aspire to as humans?
We have become too complex. Have we lost the feeling for the unseen? Have we forgotten the desire to disappear into something great or a great emotion or feeling? Maybe that's why people like to read romance or about epic and heroic journeys. But those are just surrogates for what we really want.
Self-annihilation is not always an escape. It can express a yearning to merge into a greater flow, toward which one may assume the role of the sacrificial lamb, foregoing, first and foremost, our sense of self, our ego.
Where would that yearning have come from if there is nothing beyond appearances?
You see ghosts in a reservoir or the middle of a snowy hill. But they are you. You are the ghostly shadows in a realm that includes you and rejects you all at the same time.
Use frustration. Use noise. Use unfulfilled love. Use loneliness. You have been rejected, have you not? Look for that which does not reject.
In meditation or as you live and breathe from moment to moment, do you sense that which is vast all around you?
Use your daily frustrations to get there.
But, alas, you can feel it, but you cannot get close.
It may be as radiant as the sun, but you are nothing like a flower.
So, you look on with longing.
You may be an ant, and you may be a god. But first and foremost, you are a human.
You see transcendence. You feel the infinite hover over your shoulders when you are not even looking for it.
But the lucky thing for us is that we don’t have to get there. We just have to accept that we won’t get there, and lo and behold, we are there.
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