In spiritual circles, I often hear that everything which arises is perfect as it is, and what it arises from—God, the Universe, Oneness or whatever name one would like to use—is utterly complete and whole. If this is so, then why this dream, this nightmare of duality? No one sane would create such a nightmare full of suffering…
At the moment you call it a nightmare, I call it a divine play. If perfection did not appear as imperfection, you would not have even the concept of perfection. If you did not know sorrow, you could not appreciate joy. If you did not know the sense of what is bad, you would not have the sense of what is good. If you did not have the sense of being a person, you would not have the ability to have relationship with any being. If you did not have the sense of ‘I’, you could not have the sense of ‘other’. If the perfect did not manifest as diversity, there could be no experience at all.
Surely, life is to taste these varied flavors and still remember who and what you are beyond the limited sense of personal identity. Do you know who you are, really? We seem to forget our original nature and embrace a misconception about our Self which brings us pain. This misconception also gives us the sense of autonomy, of privacy, of creative pride, but it seems to eclipse the intuitive recognition of our innate harmony and wholeness. And so we must go through this game of existence using all our powers to discover our true nature. In manifesting as human beings, consciousness continues to be creative through the human instrument.
Human beings are not the owners or controllers of consciousness; we are the expressions of consciousness. We are not merely the characters in existence; we are existence itself and the witness of the existence, but if we are deeply enmeshed in the identity of being a person, the play will seem heavier, less kind, more confused. This heaviness is also the expression of consciousness. It is not possible for the perfect to become imperfect. The only way it could become imperfect is to dream it. Perhaps this is why it is called awakening—it is awakening from the sleep and ignorance of the egoic identity. As we come back to our Self, we begin to appreciate the greatness of this play.
When you wake up you see that all of this is a dream, that you have always been only this wholeness. ‘Nightmare’ is simply part of the dream and is made mostly out of egoic thoughts: ‘I want this, I don’t want that, I, I, I, me, me, mine…’ Sometimes we think, ‘If it was up to me, I could make a better world.’ But if you had the choice, even the highest choice, whatever you will create is much less than life gives now. If you could choose, you would always choose chocolate flavored experiences, and you would not grow or evolve.
Sometimes we grow in a true way through challenging experiencing, through difficulties, through pain. Ultimately we aspire for freedom, for truth, not for delicious experiences which are only momentary. Even now your life could be full of gratitude that you don’t express. There are some people who, if they had your legs, your eyes, your health, they would be full of gratitude. They don’t have these and they are still full of gratitude. And to that extent they have a joy, they have a peace within themselves. Sometimes people with far less than the worst you have, show more gratitude than you who have far more than they could aspire for. If you want to come out of this nightmare, start to say thank you. Find things to say ‘thank you’ for. They are many, far more than to say ‘no thank you’ for.
All this manifestation is still the Garden of Eden, but we don’t see this because we see with eyes cultivated in imperfection, ignorance, selfishness. When we look with the eyes of the Self everything becomes divine. When one experiences the Truth, it’s not that this world is replaced with another. The same is here but the eyes have changed from eyes of a person to eyes of presence. They become complete again and see perfection even in the apparent imperfections of life.
There’s a saying, ‘I’m not seeing the world as it is; I am seeing the world as I am.’ Whatever you conceive yourself to be, you see the world through those spectacles. There is one Earth, but billions of worlds, because in each body, a private world is created out of identity, desire, conditioning, education, habit, fantasy, attachments, projections. All of this makes a unique world each with its own preferences, favorites, desires, bias.
Only one whose mind has been cleaned free from ego, sees things as they are. And as things truly are, there is a perfection. Only such a one could be said to be a truly universal, meaning: universal in understanding and perception. Everyone else belongs to a tribe—a tribe of thinking, of culture. Only the one who is empty of concepts or free from the hypnosis of personal identity and conditioning, is liberated, is the Buddha. Such a one is free from the illusion of managing existence. They have no strategies, nor any inherent fear. They move in natural harmony with the universal Being.
This is a mortal body, but the immortal and timeless Being is dwelling inside it for a while. Find out who you truly are while your body is still warm… and be happy.
