It is crucial to come to know death when we are still alive. The quality of life is completely different for the one who knows the letting go in the waking state. This is the real meaning of the word death. That is the real significance of the word sacrifice. As Meister Eckhart says: " God is when I am not. " We are born only after the death of all that is personal. When we are awakened in emptiness, we can only speak of fullness.
Whatever there is is God’s presence felt. And whatever we may feel of God’s presence, is what there is here and now, including what exists and appears. It is all here for our recollecting, all here that we can be and be god like. Every experience that we may have, every sorrow and every joy, every fear or trust, every ugly or beautiful appearance, is felt and seen because of our being first. To watch anything is to be watched in return by a presence watching. We can make ourself disappear in it, and be without a self, without the self we have always known and colluded with. And we can share of that impersonal, infinite being that is not ours, but that we can be and embrace as our own. So ‘I am’ is the secret door opener within us, that will give us the world we are in. We will have an aggrandised property, or a world made of the very size of ourself, infinite, manageable, and towards which our being may shine a benevolent beam of light and peace. That I feel is a possibility.
The world will have its secret identity disclosed to us. And we too will have our secret identity revealed. Both being made one, and ourself being of it. Others will cease being others. They will join us as that shared one being. There won’t be any jealousy or comparison, but a rejoicing in and as that oneness felt. Our fate and destiny will be contained inside us, within our own being. There won’t be a time to hope for, or a place to fail in, or a self to mess up. There won’t be a fear of tomorrow, or a regret of yesterday, for both will have merged in and as the being that we are. Time and place will have come to be only convenience. And our very being will have come to be the time and place we are in. That too is a possibility.
The knowing of our own being will have come to be our only experience. The many will have shrunk into the one, and the infinite will have subdued our senses, and made itself seen, heard, touched, and contained within our experience. Happiness will cease being a temporary achievement, and will become the flavour of our shared being with people and things. We will have joy woven into every single corner of our life. That’s the possibility we have at hand.
Movement will be seen as the manifold expression of stillness, and silence recognised as the only component of our living symphony. Turmoil will be felt as this last bit of ourself that we have yet to embrace — not something to be afraid of, but an opportunity that we welcome. We have to see this as a possibility.
So this life is the garden of Eden we once extricated ourself from, but have in fact never left otherwise than in our imagination. And love is not an occasional encounter, but the very air we take our breath from. I’m just throwing the possibility in the air.
Now we recognise after all, that the being of God is what we are — the possibility we are in, without there being a God or a ‘we’.
O You who are the object of my perception And the hidden desire of my heart! O complete Being, the Whole Whom I love with all my parts. I turn to You in longing and sorrow; You for whom my heart is caught in the talons Of a flying bird. Immersed in pain, lost, amazed and dazed I move from wilderness to wilderness. Travelling, blinded by Your mystery, Lightning fast and restlessly moving Like the suddenness of a vision That disappears as one wakes. Carried away by the stream of awareness For the pleasure of the Absolute.
Amazed at Thou and I O object of my desire! Thou allowed me nearness to Thee, Though I called Thee me. I lost myself in finding Thee Till Thou annihilated me in Thee. O blessing of my life And my solace after death, None cares for me save Thou; Thou art in my fear and peace. O you garden of meaning That circumscribes all my talents, If I desire anything I desire Thee!