“If you are willing, would you please transcribe our conversations, verbatim, and put them up on a website, in case anyone is interested?”

I’m thinking he was just trying to keep my mind busy for a while, re-reading and typing up everything he said, to let it all start to sink in. I mean, who is even going to know about this, not to mention actually read any of it? I still don’t really understand why he asked me to meet with him in the first place. Maybe he thought if he could help someone like me get at least some kind of clue about this stuff, there’s hope for everyone else. By the way, if he had only told me our talks were going to be transcribed, I would’ve tried to sound more spiritual. Too damn late now…

I wish you could’ve seen his eyes when he was talking. There’s something about them. This will sound a little strange, but it’s almost like he makes his own sunshine. You get the feeling there could be a hundred foot wall of water roaring towards him, and he would just stand there, absolutely calm and relaxed, and say “Okay. You can have me,” and just completely melt into it. Like he doesn’t run from anything, but he doesn’t fight anything either. I know, it doesn’t make sense. Maybe you’ll get a taste of it yourself. I asked him if someone reading this might feel any of that energy and presence and flow I sometimes felt those three weeks. He said “The slightest whiff of roses can lead you to the garden. Anyone can fall into the Silence beneath the words.” (I didn’t know what he meant either, but I was paying for the call, so I just said thanks and moved on).

By the way, just like he told me, don’t believe anything he says that you don’t deeply KNOW– maybe not in your head, but in the center of your heart. You know how sometimes you go “I KNEW that! I just didn’t know I knew it yet!” It’s like some kind of instant remembering inside. But he also said when you don’t know something is true, don’t push it away either. Just let it all float around, don’t worry about it, and trust the depths of your heart to sort through it.

I guess the last big question is, why does he want to be anonymous? Here’s what his note said:

…And I’d rather you not mention my name in the transcripts. Who I am just isn’t important for this project. It isn’t about me or my teachings or my background. It’s about those deepest truths, repeated throughout the centuries, that so few have heard, but so many are longing for. It’s about giving anyone who happens to be drawn towards the transcripts a chance to remember what their heart has always deeply known. Not because I said it, or because some great scripture or mystic of the past said it, but only because deep in their heart, they will KNOW it.

So, here they are. all 15 meetings, transcribed word for word. If anyone happens to find this and actually reads it, I apologize in advance for pretty much everything I said.  You might think about just reading his part. All the wisdom, half the time. 

Alight. Let’s dive in. I didn’t have any trouble finding his place that first Monday morning.  He motioned me in, welcomed me with those warm, smiling eyes of his and gave me some tea. We sat down in his living room, and then we got started.

Good. Then let’s get started. So, before there was anything– any thing at all– there was Ultimate Reality, the Source, the Godhead, Pure Essence, the Ground of all being, what I sometimes refer to as Sol.

S-o-u-l?

No. Capital S, long o, l. Sol.

Why do you call this– whatever it is– Sol?

Sol as in sun. It’s like an infinite, shimmering, translucent sun. Sol as in Sun Of Light. And Source Of Life. It’s the Mother of existence. Sol as in soul, s-o-u-l. It’s the Ultimate Essence, the One Consciousness, the Supreme Soul. And Sol as in sole,

s-o-l-e. It’s the Only. The One. The All.

So basically, in the beginning there was an infinite, ultimate, single, supreme, soulful sun of light. Well that pretty much clears everything up for me. I’m pretty sure I’m enlightened now. Thanks for your time.

We have to start somewhere. You’ve probably heard the saying, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Yeah, well I’m still trying to get my shoes on. I mean, we just suddenly dove in, and I’m not even sure what we dove into. I know you’re trying to give me some kind of overview of how we got separated from our true essence and how we can get back “Home”, as you call it. But I’m not exactly the most qualified guy around to be talking with you about this stuff. I mean, most marketing degree programs don’t offer a lot of classes on deep spiritual truths. I did take a few psychology classes though. “Understanding and Manipulating the Consumer Mind,” that kind of thing. I had to take an Ethics class too, which I did really well in. That guy I paid to write my term paper must have done a hell of a job. If there’s one thing I learned in college, and that sounds about right, it’s that if you want something done right in this world, you gotta pay out the wazoo.

Anyway, the point is that when it comes to this stuff, I’ve read a few books and been to a few talks, but that’s about it. I tried to meditate once, but I ran out of things to think about so I had to stop. And once I tried hugging a tree, if that counts for anything. I just got sap all over my clothes. A real bonding experience. I mean, the closest I’ve ever come to a mystical experience was when I was walking in the mountains one day and suddenly, out of nowhere, bam! I saw a sign. Changed my life.

What did you see?

A sign. It said “park maps.”

And this changed your life?

I had this sudden realization that backwards it spelled “spam krap.” I haven’t had any since. Unlike my email.  But the point is, I just don’t get why you asked me, of all people, if I wanted to have these conversations with you.

Do you remember the question you asked the other night?

At your talk? Yeah. It felt like everyone but me was following what you were saying, nodding their saintly little heads and smiling and all. And I was just completely fricking lost most of the time. It was frustrating. I felt totally inferior and inadequate. So I just told you what was going on, and asked if I should just assume that since I didn’t get what the hell you were talking about, that meant I wasn’t ready to hear it yet. That I wasn’t spiritually evolved enough or something.

And do you remember my response?

Well, you said that it’s no one’s place but mine to decide what I’m ready to hear. And that my lack of understanding might be more of a reflection on you than me. You said maybe you gear your talks too much towards people who already know what you’re talking about.

I do tend to assume a certain level of spiritual understanding and experience in those who feel drawn to my talks. But after your question, I found myself wondering how many others have left one of my talks feeling lost, inadequate and discouraged. By focusing on those who are already familiar with these teachings, I may have been inadvertently alienating many of those who are actually the most thirsty for them.

When you say “these teachings” are you talking about one particular spiritual path?

Many rivers. One ocean.

Good to know. When you say “these teachings” are you talking about one particular spiritual path?

I’m speaking of the universal insights, realizations and experiences found at the depths of all spiritual paths. Many of these understandings have been around for more than twenty-five centuries, and have developed independently in several different cultures.. Of course, different teachers and different paths have their own languages, their own metaphors, their own perspectives, their own flavors. But that which they seek to unveil is essentially the same. There are many paths up a mountain. Each path brings forth different experiences and scenery. And different concepts of what the mountain is like. But whichever path is followed, the clear view at the top is the same. The nineteenth century Japanese Zen master, Ryokan, wrote “In all ten directions of the universe, there is only one truth. When we see clearly, the great teachings are the same.”

In the last several decades, there has been increasing awareness of and interest in the undeniable similarities in the perspectives of those who have glimpsed the view from the mountain top, regardless of the path they followed to get there. They are describing very similar maps of the nature of reality. And currently, more people than ever before are being exposed to these maps, through talks and workshops, through the writings of masters and mystics throughout the ages, and through more recent books. And more people than ever are coming to know through direct experience the terrain these maps describe. More people than ever are beginning to glimpse Home.

My friend, it appears we are starting to see the beginning of a global awakening. A quickening that could bring in a new degree of maturation of the human species. We have been caterpillars long enough! And we are beginning to encounter more butterflies around us than ever before!

Somehow I tend to pretty much only attract moths.  

But in spite of the growing interest in these universal teachings, there are still a great many people who have not yet been exposed to even the more basic ones in a clear way. And very, very few are familiar with the deepest and most pristine of these teachings, even though they appear again and again throughout the centuries. When you asked your question the other night, it became clear to me that it is time to try to help make these teachings more accessible to the many who are still longing to hear them. To start at the beginning, and to gradually move deeper into those teachings that are so astoundingly revolutionary to the mind, and yet that resonate so deeply within the heart as pure, simple and true.

Just because of something I said? There go your credibility ratings. But I still don’t get why you decided to personally tutor me in “Spirituality 101″.

First of all, it was clear the other night that you have a deep desire to understand. I felt compelled to honor that. It was also clear that you have a willingness to speak your mind. I believe you are independent enough to not just blindly accept everything I tell you.

If you say so.

But these conversations will feed two birds with one seed. They will be a learning experience for us both. I’ve never tried to explain these teachings, from the beginning, to someone not yet familiar with them, and this seemed to be a good way for me to get my feet wet.

So basically, I’m your guinea pig. I can’t express how honored I feel.

Don’t mention it.

But why record our talks?

I’m not sure yet. I just had the feeling it might be a good idea. Maybe it will be helpful for one of us later, or maybe it will serve some other purpose, I don’t know. So shall we return to the teachings?

* * * * * *

All right. So what do you mean when you say that Sol is a brilliant sun of light?

This is just a very simplified way to begin to conceptualize it. Essence can be thought of as light, but not as we normally think of it. Capital “L” Light. It is the infinite Pure Light that gives birth to all that is in this world.

You know how there are different frequencies of light, and we can only see a narrow band? I can sort of conceptualize this light if I think of it as way off the scale.

That’s one way of looking at it. Although this Light is everywhere, it’s not within the narrow range of what our physical eyes can see. In the fifth century, Saint Augustine wrote “I entered into the secret closet of my soul, led by Thee… and beheld with the mysterious eye of my soul the Light that never changes… It was not the common light which all flesh can see, nor was it greater yet of the same kind… but it was higher because it made me, and I was lower because I was made by it. He who knows the truth knows that Light; and he who knows it knows eternity. Love knows it.” So this Light is much more than a frequency beyond the scale. It’s like all of the frequencies together, before they were ever separated. And it’s that which gave every frequency its birth.

So maybe it’s kind of like the pure light that comes into a prism, not one of the divided color frequencies that leave it.

Yes. Imagine everything, all matter, all energy, to only manifest as its own individual property after it has gone through the prism.

So the prism is like a gateway into created reality. A prism portal.

Yes. Before this prism, There was only the Pure Light of the Source.

Then what was the prism? What was this gateway that transformed the Essence into all of these properties?

We’re getting ahead of ourselves. For now let’s focus on the Source itself.

All right, then what did you mean when you said Sol as in soul, s-o-u-l.

Give it a try.

I don’t know. You said that Sol existed before anything else. So I guess you could see it as the original soul. The original essence. The precursor to all other souls. You know, it’s not easy being pre-cursed.

Ahh, but we are pre-blessed! We pretend to be the shell, we think that we’re the creature, but truly we’re the Pearl, on a great adventure! You’re right that this One Sun is the original Essence. The One Soul out of which all souls are born. The word “soul” also suggests consciousness. Pure Being is Infinite Consciousness. Infinite Awareness.

This Light is conscious?

To say that it’s conscious might suggest there is something other for it to be conscious of. There is only the One. It’s more accurate to say that it is Pure Awareness. With a capital “P” and a capital “A”. It’s far beyond what we normally think of as awareness. Far more pure, simple and vast.

It’s really baffling. Each word sounds like English. But the way you put them together, I don’t know. Swahili or something. Let’s come back to that one. What about Sol as in sole, s-o-l-e?

Ultimate Reality is all there is. There is nothing else. It’s the Only. It’s the One.

What do you mean it’s the only? The only what?

It’s the Only. We can’t say that it’s the only thing there is, for it isn’t a thing. It’s every thing. And much more. It’s the Oneness, the unity, the medium, the field, the ground, the Source, the Essence, that underlies all things. Everything that exists is a particular manifestation of this Essence, just as every wave is a particular manifestation of the ocean. And yet, waves are never something other than the ocean. The waves of the various aspects of our level of reality are never truly separate from the luminous Ocean of Essence. A failing of this metaphor is that it gives the impression we are somehow on the surface of Essence. In fact, there is no surface. It is infinite. And we’re always in its depths.

So we’re in this cosmic ocean of Light right now?

It’s said a fish will be the last to discover water.

Yeah, well, a fish will pretty much be the last to discover anything.

Ultimate Reality is an infinite ocean of Light, and all that exists rests within this ocean. Most of us do not see it. Most of us seldom experience it. But it is everywhere. And although this Light manifests in infinite ways after it has gone through the prism, it’s still essentially the Light. Essence. Pure Being.

So basically, you’re just saying that everything in existence is made of this Light after it has gone through the prism and separated into all of the different aspects of reality. And, therefore, everything in reality is the Light. It’s a pretty simple concept, really. So, just a few wrap up questions: What the hell is the Light, what the hell is the prism, what the hell do you mean we’re a pearl on an adventure, and what the hell does a fish have to do with anything?

How about one question at a time.

So what’s the Light? You’ve said that it’s the Essence, the Source, the One, and that all of reality comes from it. But you also said it’s like an ocean that all of us are in all the time.

It is Ultimate Reality. The Ground of all Being. The Source that creates and sustains manifest or created reality. The Chinese sage, Lao-tzu, wrote twenty-five hundred years ago, “There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging. Infinite. Eternally present. It is the mother of the universe. For lack of a better name, I call it the Tao.” And a few centuries earlier, the Hindu scriptures, the Upanishads, described it this way: “As a spider spreads and withdraws its thread, so out of the Immutable does the phenomenal universe arise.”

Those who have intimately known it throughout the centuries have called it by many names: The Tao, the One, the Real, Brahman, Emptiness, the Void, the Formless, Pure Awareness, the Ultimate, the Absolute, the Infinite, God, the Divine, the Self, the Source, the Light, Pure Being, Pure Love, True Nature, Essence and so on. Some Ancient Indian texts refer to it as Satchitananda. “Sat”, meaning existence or being, “chit”, meaning awareness, and “ananda”, meaning bliss. It is infinite Being, infinite Awareness, and infinite Joy.

So basically, the goal is to become full of chit. I’m so close. Yet so far. So you were saying?

The twentieth century French priest, Henri le Saux, spent years in India exploring the common ground between Hinduism and Christianity, and eventually became a revered teacher to people of both faiths. He wrote “In my own innermost center, in the most secret mirror of my heart, I tried to discover the image of him whose I am, of him who lives and reigns in the infinite space of my heart. But the reflected image gradually grew faint, and soon it was swallowed up in the radiance of its Original… Finally, nothing was left but he himself, the Only One, infinitely alone, Being, Awareness, and Bliss, Satchitananda. In the heart of Satchitananda, I had returned to my Source.”

Of course, all of these words are inadequate. Human language cannot accurately describe that which is far beyond everything language was created to describe. Lao- tzu said “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” It’s beyond time, beyond space, beyond form, beyond duality, beyond every level of manifest reality. The Source created everything in existence from itself. All that is, including us, at the most basic level, is Pure Being.

How can it be beyond duality?

The seventh century Chinese master, Yung-chia Ta-shih,–

–Bless you.

As I was saying, he said “The Inner Light is beyond praise or blame; like space it knows no boundaries, yet it is even here, within us, ever retaining its serenity and fullness.” Pure Being is beyond blame and even beyond praise. It is beyond duality. In the pure and unified ocean of Essence, there are none of the dichotomies that emerge after the prism, after the manifestation into reality. In the eighth century, Hui Hai wrote “A mind that is truly free has reached the state in which opposites are seen as empty. There is only freedom.” And the Indian text, the Avadhut Gita, probably written around the ninth century, says “When a jar is broken, the space that was inside merges into the space outside. In the same way, my mind has merged in God; to me, there appears no duality.” The early twentieth century poet and author, D. H. Lawrence put it this way: “When I am timeless and absolute, all duality has vanished. But whilst I am temporal and mortal, I am framed in the struggle and embrace of the two opposite waves of darkness and of light.” Essence is pure Oneness. It has no good or evil, no right or wrong, no past and future, no subject and object.

No good or evil? Isn’t this Essence like the purest good?

It is so simple in its purity and unity that it is before both good and evil. The ninth century Sufi mystic, Yazid al-Bistami, said “Be in a realm where neither good nor evil exists. Both of them belong to the world of created beings.” In this realm of Pure Being there are no opposites at all. There is only the One.

I still don’t get this nondual thing.

We’ll talk about it more in the coming days, but the intellect can never grasp it. Duality cannot perceive Nonduality. It can only talk about it as though it were something else. And by its very nature, it can never be something else. One Indian Buddhist nun said, around the tenth century, “You may say ‘existence,’ but you can’t grasp it! You may say ‘nonexistence’ but many things appear! It is beyond the sky of ‘existence’ and ‘nonexistence’– I know it but cannot point to it!”

* * * * * *

I think I’m getting a brain cramp. I forgot to stretch it before we started.

While the Ground of all being sounds complex, it is ultimate simplicity. Ultimate purity. If it is awareness, it’s awareness ultimately simplified. If it’s being, it’s being ultimately simplified. If it’s energy, it’s energy ultimately simplified. Whatever qualities we attribute to it in a feeble attempt to understand it, we can imagine them being indescribably more pure, more clear, more simple and more vast than those same qualities when they describe things in our level of reality.

As long as we’re talking about things way over my head, why did this Ground of all being create reality? I mean, was it lonely, or bored, or did it just want a good laugh?

Let’s save that little question for tomorrow.

Okay. So quick recap. This Essence is some kind of a radiant, aware, nondual, limitless presence that’s beyond what we can normally experience or understand within the confines of our level of reality. And from it everything in our level of reality is created. So everything, all that is in reality, is this Essence.

Right. The sixteenth century Indian poet, Kabir, said “I see Him smiling everywhere as the supreme Beauty in every form.” And the Irish theologian, John Erigena, wrote in the ninth century, “We ought not understand God and creation as two things distinct from each other, but as one and the same. For both the creature, by subsisting, is in God; and God, by manifesting himself, in a marvelous and ineffable manner creates himself in the creature.” And the first century Greek philosopher, Simon Magus, wrote “There is one Divine Reality, divided as Higher and lower; generating Itself, nourishing Itself, seeking Itself, finding Itself… It is both Mother and Father, a Unity, being the Root of the entire circle of existence.”

It sounds like we’re talking about this Essence as two different things: The Essence itself, the source of reality, which is probably what he means by “the Higher”, and the– I guess you’d call it the post-prism Essence. The lower. Which became all of the aspects of created reality while somehow retaining its pure form within each aspect.

Yes, and that is a good way to put it.

Great. Now what did I say?

You said basically the same thing Ashvagosha said, a second century Indian poet and mystic: “In the one Soul we may distinguish two aspects. The one is the Soul-as-Absolute; the other is the Soul-as-relative-world. Each in itself constitutes all things, and both are so closely related that one cannot be separated from the other.”

So there’s pre-prism Essence and post-prism Essence. Clear as mud.

And once the Essence has gone through the prism, as it were, it may be understood as two things: as a template or matrix or blue print around which each aspect of reality gathers and congeals, and also as the stuff out of which each aspect is formed. It’s both the tiny, dissolved sugar particles in a glass of water, and the string around which they crystallize into organized structural patterns as the water evaporates.

Now that you put it that way, I still don’t get it.

Are you at all familiar with quantum physics?

I’ve read a number of books on the subject.

Good. Then you–

–Unfortunately, that number happens to be zero. Me and book stores don’t get along so well. Every time I go in one, my head gets stuck tilted to the right for a week. But anyway, how complicated can it be? I mean, it’s not rocket science. Is it?

Quantum physicists are well aware that everything in our level of reality, no matter how solid it appears, is made up of sub-atomic particles that have as much space between them, relative to their size, as the planets of a solar system. While rocks, trees, chairs, floors, our physical bodies, and the Earth itself all appear solid, if we could observe them closely enough, we would see much more emptiness than substance. In that respect we are, more than anything else, empty space.

I think we’ve all known a few people who demonstrate that.

For a long time, physicists expected to find a fundamental building block of matter, some indivisible particle. They have found instead that there comes a point in which particles cease being matter and become waves, probabilities, energetics. All matter is comprised of subatomic energy. This energy may be seen both as the matrix around which matter crystallizes, and as the stuff of which matter itself is composed.

And you’re saying that this energy is the Essence?

No. This energy is still part of created reality. I’m mentioning this as an analogy of how it’s possible that Essence is both the matrix around which the matter and energy of our level of reality is formed, as well as the fundamental stuff that comprises all matter and energy.

Look, I think you should know that I lost a lot of brain cells in college. They weren’t mine– I misplaced a tissue sample in biology class. But still, that incident taught me just how fragile brain cells can be, which is why I try not to overload mine with pointless extras like ideas.

Can you sense towards how it is that everything is both connected to this Essence and is this Essence? It’s in this way that Pure Being is an ocean all around us. For a time, we become as individual drops of water. But we’re always a part of the Ocean. The nineteenth century Indian sage, Ramakrishna, said “I do actually see that it is the Absolute who has become all things around us; it is he who appears as the finite Soul and the phenomenal world.” And the fourteenth century Christian mystic, Julian of Norwich, wrote “The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.” And the Hermetic writings, probably written by a third century Greek mystic, tell us “Say no longer that God is invisible. Do no speak thus, for what is more manifest than God?… That is the miraculous power of God, to show Himself through all beings.” The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, who lived in the sixth century B. C., wrote “All things are one. In the One, above and below are the same.” Or as Kabir put it, “Behold but One in all things; it is the second that leads you astray.”

It’s one thing to have a concept of this in our minds. It’s another to truly, fully, deeply know it in the heart. The Upanishads tell us, “This is to be understood by the heart, there is no separateness at all.” This direct, intimate knowing is what moves the true mystic to exclaim, as did the thirteenth century Christian mystic, Angela of Foligno, “The whole world is full of God!” Or as the prophet Muhammad put it in the sixth century, “Wherever you turn is God’s face.” And “Do not despise the world, for the world too is God.” And similarly, the nineteenth century Indian poet, Ghalib, wrote “This world is no more than the Beloved’s single face.”

This has been said again and again, in different ways, throughout the cultures and centuries. The Papyrus of Ani, part of the Egyptian Book of the Dead that’s more than four thousand years old: “God, Himself, is existence; He lives in all things, and lives upon all things.” The Rig Veda, a collection of Indian hymns more than three thousand years old: “All beings of the universe form, as it were, only a portion of His being; the greater part is invisible and unchangeable… He appears as all sentient and insentient beings.” The Upanishads: “Whatever lives is full of the Lord.” And “Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings.”

Self?

Another inadequate name for the Unnamable. The first century Jewish Theologian, Philo, wrote “Everything is God’s grace. Every being in the world, and the world itself, manifests the blessings and generosity of God.” The eighth century Indian yogi, Shankara: “This universe is nothing but Brahman. See Brahman everywhere, under all circumstances, with the eye of the spirit and a tranquil heart.” The thirteenth century Christian mystic, Mechtild of Magdeburg: “The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw– and knew I saw– all things in God and God in all things.” The fourteenth century Sufi poet, Hafiz: “When I bring my heart close to any object, I always hear the Friend say, ‘Hafiz, I am Here.’” The sixteenth century Christian mystic, Saint Teresa of Avila: “At first… I did not know that God was in all things. And when He seemed to me to be so near, I thought it impossible.” The nineteenth century English poet and artist, William Blake: “Everything that lives is Holy.” Black Elk: “ We should know well that the Great Spirit is within all things, and that it is above all things as well.” And listen to Kabir: “There is a secret one inside us; the planets in all the galaxies pass through his hands like beads. That is a string of beads one should look at with luminous eyes.”

All the world is always fresh, pulsing, and shimmering with Life. Every atom is bubbling over with Essence. Everything is endlessly overflowing with Luminous Mystery. Yet we cannot see the Ocean for the waves. The thirteenth century Sufi, Mahmud Shabistari, wrote “Under the veil of every atom is hidden the ravishing beauty of the face of the Beloved!” And in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said of the Kingdom of Heaven “It will not come by waiting for it… Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the Earth, and men do not see it.” The thirteenth century Italian poet, Dante, agreed: “Heaven calls you and revolves around you, showing you its everlasting beauty, and your eye perceives only the passing earth.” And the seventeenth century Protestant poet, Thomas Traherne, wrote “The world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty yet no man regards it.” Listen to my favorite lines from the nineteenth century poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

But still I feel that His embrace
Slides down by thrills, through all things made,
Through sight and sound of every place:
As if my tender mother laid

On my shut lips her kisses’ pressure

Half-waking me at night, and said

“Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?”

When there is only an endless falling into the Pure Present, without the slightest effort to resist it or replace it, true seeing spontaneously arises, and everything is seen to be inside the Infinite Center of Existence. The Greek philosopher and mystic, Empedocles, said twenty-five hundred years ago, “The Nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.” And Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “Standing on the bare ground… a mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

That brings up a really important question. How in the hell did you memorize all these quotes?

One of the ways we can sink more deeply into the Most Real is to really listen to those who are describing it. Because these writings have helped me to fall deeper into Being, I have read them again and again. Now most of them simply come when I think of them.

Still, you must have a hell of a memory.

It certainly isn’t important to have one. There’s no need to study or remember the words of others. That’s just something that comes naturally for this personality.

You know, I was tested once for a photographic memory.

But you don’t remember the results?

I wasn’t going to say that. Okay, maybe I was. Anyway, it sounds like all these people are just looking around at the regular world, but they’re seeing a depth or a dimension to it that the rest of us just don’t see.

Right. It’s as though when we look at the ocean, most of us limit our awareness to the surface. But some people let their effortful attention relax from focusing on the surface, and that lets them take in the incredible depths that are always there. They tell us, “Don’t you see? The ocean isn’t just a flat surface, it’s actually incredibly deep and rich and beautiful and alive!” And we look again at the two dimensional surface, and recommend to them a good psychiatrist. Everything is supported by the Ocean of Essence. Everything can be a doorway to True Reality, if only we look beyond its facade, into the Infinite Depths within it. William Blake wrote “When the doors of perception are cleansed, reality is seen as it is. Infinite.” And, “He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God.”

It sounds like we’re usually trying to understand Ultimate Reality or Essence or whatever as if it’s something else, way far off, but it’s actually right here, all around us.

Exactly! The nineteenth century poet, Emily Dickensen, wrote “The Infinite a sudden Guest has been assumed to be. But how can that stupendous come which never went away?” It is so close that our minds keep missing it. Any concept of Pure Being can at best be a shadow of actually experiencing it. Shadows are useful. They can direct us to the light. But they are not to be mistaken for it. Lao-tzu wrote “It can’t be grasped by the imagination.” And the sixteenth century mystic, Saint John of the Cross, said “All that the imagination can imagine and the reason conceive and understand in this life is not, and cannot be, approximate means of union with God.” The nineteenth century poet, Walt Whitman, wrote “I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not in the least.” And Saint Augustine put it this way: God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand you have failed.”

It’s good to know I’m not in danger of failing any time soon.

To the intellect, Pure Being will always be an unfathomable mystery. To the innermost heart, it will always be Home.

Well, you’d think my innermost heart would at least give my intellect a guided tour.

The mind gazes at the distant Sun, longing to understand. And all the while, the Heart within the heart yawns, stretches, and curls back up into the warmth. All right, my friend. Enough for today. See you tomorrow.

You look refreshed and energized. You enjoyed yourself?

Yeah. Sometimes I really get into it. I usually feel pretty alive and peaceful and connected when I play. And then afterwards it usually stays with me for a while. But sooner or later, I always have to deal with life– clean the kitchen or pay bills or whatever– and then I lose it. Lately I’ve been trying the strategy of never cleaning or paying bills, but I don’t think that’s really going to work as a long term plan. I mean, I thought the refrigerator mold was getting tall before my electricity got shut off. Do you know where I could get an indoor lawn mower? The good news is, I’m eating a lot more greens. Anyway, I guess I either need to play guitar all the time or try to figure out how to have that same flow while I’m doing other things.

Let me tell you a story. Once, a demon in the darkest depths of Hell saw a shining angel’s harp slowly falling past him. He was intrigued by it, and began to pluck the strings. As he did, he found himself beginning to rise through the levels of Hell. And as he ascended, he felt the heavy burden of hatred and fear within him begin to diminish. He continued to play, and found himself floating upward towards the planes of Heaven. His arms and fingers became exhausted, but he didn’t dare stop. He kept rising until he finally reached the highest level of Heaven. And there, before him, was the Divine. Overcome with joy and love greater than he had ever imagined, he let go of the harp to embrace the Divine. Of course, the moment he did, he began falling back downward through the planes, until he found himself again in the depths of Hell. The demon realized that if he were to ever embrace the exquisite beauty of the Divine, he would have to ascend to Heaven empty handed. The shining harp floated back down into the depths, and another demon began to play.

So did the demon ever make it back to the Divine?

One day, even Satan will return to the joy and love of the Light, a prodigal son, welcomed and embraced.

That’ll be one hell of a party. It’s a pretty powerful image, the Divine embracing Satan, completely forgiving him.

What is perhaps more powerful is that, from the perspective of the Divine, there is nothing to forgive. Absolutely nothing. But we’ll talk about this another time.

Good, because right now I’m not buying that one. I mean, first of all, you’re telling me the perspective of the Divine. And second, whether you take Satan as real, or as a personification of the evil, the suffering, the cruelty in the world, you’re saying there’s nothing for the Divine to forgive? And you’re minimizing it all to the equivalent of the prodigal son? Isn’t that the kid who ran off and spent his inheritance and then came back to bum off his parents? And you’re saying it’s the same thing? Give me a fricking break!

I didn’t say there is no need for us to forgive. But we’ll talk about this another time.

“Hey, Satan, how was your trip? Your room is just the way you left it. We put the heater on high for you. We’ll have a big dinner tonight in your honor. Deviled ham, deviled eggs, all your favorites. So tell us all about your big adventures. Did you have a nice time being evil?” Look, obviously I’m upset about this. I just want there to be a little accountability. I can handle the Divine, whatever that is, forgiving Satan. But the idea that there was nothing to forgive, like Satan didn’t do anything wrong– that’s what’s getting me pissed off.

I understand. We’ll talk about this another time.

You keep saying that!

You can’t see the view from the heights of a mountain you have barely begun to climb.

Try me. You said yourself it’s up to me what I’m ready to hear.

All right. I’ll just say this for now, even though it’s jumping quite a bit ahead, and you can simply let it float around inside wherever it wishes as we continue. When we talk about forgiving, we usually mean letting someone back into your heart, correct? Generally, to forgive is to let go of a closedness, a contraction, that was pushing someone away from you and your love because of their actions. And it is usually contingent upon their asking for forgiveness. They must repent first. If they’re not sorry for what they’ve done, then they don’t qualify for you letting them back into your heart. They don’t qualify for your love. But if only they would show remorse, and promise to do better, then they would meet your specific conditions, and you would then stop withholding some of your love, even if it was only a tiny bit you were withholding. You would open your contracted heart back up, so that it once more has room for them to be in it.

But Pure Essence, Pure Being, Pure Love is absolutely Infinite. Absolutely Boundaryless. Its heart has room for ALL that is. Even for those who have turned away from it. The third century mystic and philosopher, Plotinus, wrote “You do not really go away from It, for It is there; you do not ‘go’ anywhere, but remain present to It yet turn your back on It.” You can never be outside of an Infinite Heart! The Divine is Pure Love. It would never close its heart to anyone or anything. Pure Being is absolute Open Heartedness!

To close its heart even slightly, to hold the smallest grudge, to withhold the smallest bit of love, the tiniest bit of the Purest Sunshine from anyone– to push anyone away until the slightest condition is met– that is a conditional heart. That is conditional love. A love that has its limits, its boundaries, its requirements, its price. Pure Love cannot be that kind of love, for that kind of love is not Pure. The Divine cannot have that kind of heart, for that kind of heart is not Divine. Arms that would close to anyone, even for a moment, are not Divine arms. My friend, the Divine never forgives. It only GIVES. Endlessly. Infinitely. And unconditionally.

Julian of Norwich wrote “Our soul is one to God… and therefore between God and our soul there is neither wrath nor forgiveness because there is no between.”

Oh, my friend, this Infinite Heart of the Divine, in which all worlds rest, it is my Beloved. I give it my life. I give it my death. I give it all that I have. All that I am. The fifteenth century mystic, Saint Catherine of Genoa, said “I wish not for anything that comes forth from Thee, but only for Thee, oh sweetest Love!” And a writer who called himself Dionysius the Areopagite wrote, in the sixth century, “Divine Love draws those whom it seizes beyond themselves, and this so greatly that they belong no longer to themselves but wholly to the Object loved.” Do you see? Wholly to the Object loved! Until you have nothing left! Nothing! Not even separation!

Listen to Kabir: “When I was conscious of individual existence, the love of the Master filled my heart; When the love of the Master filled my heart, my sense of selfhood was dissolved. Oh Kabir, this path is too narrow for two to travel!” And Emily Dickinson: “A death blow is a life blow to some, who till they died, did not alive become. Who had they lived, had died but when, they died vitality begun.”

Oh sweetest Love, my life is yours! Do with it as you wish! I ask for nothing! And yet, You pour such endless Grace through this vessel, it melts away the boundaries of my heart! It burns away every leaf, the moment I let it fall! And so, every breath is the coming of Spring! Every heartbeat, a new birth of the Ancient Pulse!

Oh, what Grace to die before death comes! For when you melt into the Sun,  you fear no fire! You fear no flame!  Your True Life born in the ash of your name!

Um, so remember how you were saying that maybe it was a little too early to get into all this? Well, um, I apologize for not believing you. So do you think maybe you could come back down the mountain a ways and we could pick up where we left off? I mean, I don’t want to interrupt your uh, whatever it is you’re in the middle of. And it’s absolutely none of my business what you smoked before I got here. But maybe we could get back to things I might actually have a chance of understanding. Unless we’ve already pretty much exhausted those.

Sometimes I just can’t help myself. When you were a boy, did you ever go exploring and discover some wonderful treasure– maybe a cave or some bones or some big animal tracks or the like– and you couldn’t wait to show someone else? You just want to hurry and take them to the treasure. Nothing else matters. But maybe the way you want to go is too steep for them, they aren’t as used to the terrain. So you have to go the slow way. And while it is beautiful to be there, walking with them, your heart is completely focused on what it is that you have found. You can’t wait for them to see your treasure. And then, before you know it, they call out to you to slow down, and you realize you have left them far behind.

But aren’t you supposed to always be fully in the present or something?

It isn’t a question of “supposed to be”. Every “supposed to” is an attempt to change this moment. Every “should” is a pressure that suppresses the pure, Living Flow of what is.

So we’re not supposed to have any shoulds. I should remember that.

Of course, trying not to have any shoulds is just adding another one on top of all the others.

And then you just keep shoulding on yourself.

Exactly. But when you let yourself fully be with what is, even if it isn’t what you think is supposed to be, you happen to find yourself in an ever deepening Living Present. And sometimes, what is in this Pure Present is excitement and eagerness and an uncontainable flow within the heart. Like a child, eagerly carrying a kite into a field, suddenly unable to wait any longer. But I’ll try to take it a bit slower. So, let’s move on.

* * * * * *

Yesterday, you were trying to understand why Pure Being created reality. You considered the possibility that it might have felt loneliness or boredom.

Yeah, but I was thinking about this last night, and that’s really just putting human emotions onto the Creator of Existence. Which I guess is anthropologicalism at its finest.

Anthropomorphism?

That too. I mean, it seems like any reasons we could come up with are based on our particular experience of reality, not the Source’s.

It’s true that we can’t figure out any correct answers about this with our intellects. But there are other ways of knowing. Many who have directly experienced the Source have also experienced moments of profound insight into the dynamics involved in the creation of form. These insights do not easily translate into the language of the intellect, but it’s possible to obtain a rudimentary and imperfect conceptual understanding of them.

Lao-tzu said “The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds.” Empty, yet inexhaustible. It is emptiness. The Void. The Abyss. Yet it is superabundant and overflowing. This is a great paradox. And yet, it has often been described this way, in both Eastern and Western traditions.

The Source is inexhaustible. It’s overflowing with infinite superabundance. So, in regard to the creation of manifest reality, it was not that Pure Being was not enough by itself, or that it didn’t have enough. It was that the Source was too much and had too much. Too much to contain within itself as itself. The intensity of this pure, empty Light is impossible for our minds to grasp. Within that Light is infinite Joy, infinite Awareness, and infinite Creative Ability. I think of these words beginning with capital letters, because there is an ungraspable difference in order of magnitude between these qualities as they describe ourselves and these qualities of Pure Being.

Hold on. You’ve described the Essence as being pre-prism, before duality and opposites. But you’re also saying it has infinite joy. Isn’t joy half of an opposite?

Joy, as a quality of Essence, is not half of a dichotomy. Joy is a natural, ever-present quality. Within Sol, there is Oneness. There is infinite Awareness, infinite Energy, infinite Aliveness, infinite Beingness and infinite Love. How could Joy not be present?

I’m not sure if I can get this out, but it seems like opposites are like a wave pattern. I mean, if you take away all opposites, it’s like a straight line. A base line. Then if you add joy as a wave lifting off the line, you have to add its opposite, maybe sorrow or despair, as an equal wave that dips down. There can’t be the potential for one without the potential for the other. But you’re saying that there is.

I know it’s difficult to see beyond our dualistic level of reality. I’m saying that the baseline of Essence has the quality of Joy. We tend to think that both joy and despair are extremes, so the base line must be in the middle. But I would call that baseline deadness. Perhaps in our experiences joy is an unusual thing, but this is more a reflection of how lost we are than a reflection of the baseline of Essence. My friend, it is Joy, not deadness, that is the natural state of existence!

So before the creation of the different levels of reality there was all this joy, awareness, and creativity within the Essence.

Infinite Joy. Infinite Awareness. And not only infinite Creativity, but infinite Creative Ability as well. The potential to manifest anything into form.

And it was too much to contain, too much to hold in.

Yes. Sometimes we’re bursting with excitement. Sometimes we cannot contain ourselves. Sometimes we have an overwhelming desire to create.

Or procreate, as the case may be.

And sometimes we’re overflowing with joy. Imagine having all of these dynamics constantly, with a limitless ability to create from such a space. Then you can begin to glimpse a fraction of the creative impulse and power of Ultimate Reality. The artist’s passion to express, the exuberant determination of an acorn to become an oak tree, the fertilization, incubation, and birth of new life, the tendency of any body of water to at times break free from that which contains it, all of this hints towards the dynamics involved in the manifestation of the many levels of reality. That process was as natural as childbirth. There was, within the Source, a superabundance. An uncontainable impulse to burst forth.

The great Sneeze of Creation. I know. Snot funny.

The great Song of Creation. We are the song of Sol.
Many waves, one Ocean Many movements, one Motion
Many candles, one Burning Many tears, one Yearning
The Living Silence sings this world into form
Many voices, many voices, one Song.

Did you write that?

It’s just another beautifully inadequate way to express the inexpressible. To speak the unspeakable. Sometimes simple poems flow. But the real poetry is in the space between the words.

Remember back, not too long ago, when I kind of knew what you were talking about? Oh wait, that wasn’t me. So here’s an easy little question for you. Where did this Source come from? I mean, if it was the creator of reality, what created it? It’s the old question: If God made us, who made God? Or as some kid put it, who does God pray to?

Sol as in Absolute. It’s the Uncreated. When one deeply experiences Pure Being, it becomes clear that there is nothing truly separate from it. Nothing other than it. There is nothing else. It’s all encompassing. There is no other that could have created it. Shankara wrote “Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many. There is no other cause. And yet, Brahman is independent of the law of causation.” And the Buddha said “When you see the unborn, uncreated, unconditioned, you are liberated from everything born, created and conditioned.” And Jesus said, in the Gospel of Thomas, “I am he who exists from the Undivided”. This Undivided, this Uncreated, this Formless First Cause, it’s the Ground of all being. It is the Source, the Prime Mover, the True Center, the Origin, the One, the Infinite, the Supreme.

The Head Honcho, the Big Boss, the Big Cheese. The God Father. The Kingpin. Mr. Big. The Founder and President of Existence.

Now then,–

–The Queen Bee. The Big Mama. Mama Mia. The Prima Vera. The Big Linguini.

Let me know when you’re done.

The Big Enchilada. The Big Burrito. The Big Chimichanga. The Big Chijuaja. The Big, that thing where they put pieces of sizzling beef and veggies in a tortilla. Man, right about now I could really go for some good, fresh, spicy, authentic, homemade Chinese food. Anyway, speaking of changing the subject, what’s with the Gospel of Thomas? It’s not in the Bible, is it? I mean, it might have been a runner up or something, but I don’t think it made the final four.

It’s one of many writings from around the time of Jesus that weren’t selected by the church council to be included in the traditional Bible.

So you mean there were a bunch of different writings floating around, and some priests got together to decide which ones to declare holy?

Basically.

Well, not that I’m skeptical about humans making divine decisions, but that sounds pretty hit and miss. And it sounds like Thomas missed. Maybe he should have had a better agent. I’m sure complimentary wine for the council would’ve done the trick. Or maybe little fish key chains.

His account of the words of Jesus is considered by many scholars to be at least as reliable as the “final four” gospels. You might find it interesting to read some of these alternative scriptures sometime.

Yeah, right. I mean, I haven’t even gotten around to reading the council-approved Bible yet. I used to always doze off after “In the beginning”. Once, I got all the way to the part where everyone was begetting everyone else, but that begot pretty boring.

So, moving on, it’s ungraspable to the intellect that Pure Being was not created. How can something exist that was not brought into existence? This makes no sense. Our abilities to reason were developed in response to this level of reality. And, as you’ve suggested, we tend to believe that all of reality must be set up the same way. It’s like a baby in the womb assuming that everything in existence must be womb-like. This is understandable. That is all it has experienced. And so with us.

There’s a joke about that. These twins are hanging out in the womb. And one asks the other, “Do you believe in life after birth?”

Yes, exactly. It’s so difficult to see beyond the perspective in which you have been embedded. The thirteenth century Sufi poet, Rumi, said “When you finally see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, ‘This is certainly not the way we thought it was!’”

If your entire existence has been on the bottom of an ocean, you won’t easily understand such concepts as waves, deserts, clouds, light, gravity, the sun or galaxies. It would be challenging enough for you to grasp that not all of reality is in water. How could there possibly be reality beyond water? For instance, there are levels of reality beyond time, in which time is known as an illusion. To our intellects, this is most troublesome.

Right now, there’s probably some bottom dweller mystic saying, “Don’t you get it? There are many levels of reality in which water doesn’t even exist!” Then he’d recount some story about the Great and Holy Worm that lifted him up into the indescribable heavens and then allowed him to return, to tell others about his out of water experience.

Now what bottom dweller in their right mind would believe such a tale?

Makes you wonder, though. What if there’s something out there fishing for us, and mystics are just the ones that got away?… I think I’m going to have weird dreams tonight. So how can there be levels of reality beyond time?

Let’s go about it this way. When we sit in a movie theater, we watch a story unfold. We experience the movement of time. We might watch Forrest Gump, for instance, grow up from a young boy into a man. Now, we don’t need to sit there for thirty years to have that experience.

As I recall, we had to sit there a hell of a long time though.

The point I’m trying to make is that when we watch a movie, we agree to suspend our knowledge of what is really going on. We choose to enter into the story, to buy into the illusion, even though we always know deep down that it isn’t real in the same way we are real. And fifty feet away, in another theater, other people are having a completely different experience, buying into a different time period, experiencing a different amount of time passing in the same two hours. Now,–

I think it was Forrest Gump who said, or maybe it was me, time is like a box of chocolates. If you have too much of it, it can give you a wait problem. Get it? A wait problem? See, that was kind of like a joke. But without the humor.

To continue, the person who runs the projector has a very different perspective than the audience. They haven’t entered into the illusion. So, what the audience perceives as unfolding over the course of two hours, they can see all at once when they look at the film reel. They could easily hold the entire film reel in their hands. Now, how much time goes by in the story while they are holding the film reel in their hands? At what specific moment within the story are they holding the film? These questions make no sense. Time has neither stopped nor continued in the story. None of the normal words to describe time apply to the story from the perspective of one who is outside of it, holding the film in their hands. The whole story is always right there. Every moment of it. If they wanted, they could look at any one frame, any moment of the story, and it would be frozen. So, although past, present, and future have meaning within the story, they have no meaning in relation to the story for the one who is holding the reel in their hands. Are you following me?

I’m trying.

Sometimes very. Now, we can take this metaphor a bit further, and imagine browsing in a film library. We’re not confined to any of those stories, but we could choose to experience any of them. We don’t need to start with the oldest time period depicted and work our way forward. Every moment of every story is available to us. It is all right there. We’re not bound by the progression of time as it is experienced within each story. We’re not affected by it. This is the true meaning of “eternity”. It’s not spanning through out all of time, lasting forever. It’s that which is beyond the illusion of time, completely unaffected by it.

The thirteenth century Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, said “The now in which God created the first human being, and the now that we are experiencing at this moment, and the now in which the last human being will disappear are all the same now, for there is only one now.” From within the perspective of time, this is preposterous. But he realized this truth from the vantage of the cosmic film library, as it were. He was looking at the time stories of Earth from outside of them.

That actually makes some sense. But if eternity is outside of time, what’s it like? If there’s no time there, is everything just frozen, like one moment or frame of the movie? I mean, how can there be movement, fluidity, without time? And I guess the bottom dwellers ask, “How can you swim without water?” I just can’t picture what it would be like.

For two hours you sit in the theater, buying into the time illusion that is presented. It’s captivating enough that you let yourself forget the rest of your life for a while, and immerse yourself into the illusion. But when the movie is over, the possible experiences available to you are not reduced. They are greatly expanded. You don’t walk into the projection booth and just stare at the film reel. You remember more of your larger life, which you had temporarily allowed to recede into the back of your awareness, and you go on about your way. Reality is so much bigger outside of the time/space theater than it is within. Our intellect asks “But what else is there?” Yes, and so does the baby in the womb, as it ponders whether or not there could possibly be life after birth. Tomorrow then.

I’m definitely going to have weird dreams tonight.

I didn’t notice. I was too busy screaming. So, I have a question. Well, actually I have a ton of them, but this one’s been the most annoying. I can sort of get an image of the Source being like an infinite field of Light, and I can at least try to get a sense of it being like a great empty void. Not that I’ve been particularly successful with either. But when I try to put them together, forget it. How can it be both?

First let me say that there are many ways of perceiving Pure Essence. Through visual images, through sound, through feelings, and through more direct and immediate senses and experiences that have no physical or mental correlation on this level. And of course, no direct experience of the Source can be accurately described with concepts. But we must settle for the awkward blunderings of words when trying to describe that which is so far beyond them. That said, two of the more frequent ways it is experienced might be conceptualized as the Light and as the Void.

But they sound like total opposites.

Many people who experience the ocean would describe it as vibrant, ever-changing, and shimmering. They might describe the splashing waves and the cool, fresh, energizing breeze. This would all be true. And yet, if they experienced the ocean in its depths, they would have a very different perspective. Perhaps they would describe it as still, silent and dark. Both of these experiences are of the same ocean.

So the Void and the Light are like two different aspects of the same thing? Two different perspectives?

Yes. They are two different perceptions one might have of Ultimate Reality.

The Light is experienced as a medium, or as you said, a field, that is radiant, infinite, simple, empty, and completely clear. Saint Teresa of Avila described it as an “Infused brightness, a light which knows no night, but rather, as it is always light, nothing ever disturbs it.” And the tenth century Christian mystic, Symeon, the New Theologian,–

–I think his title might be a little outdated.

But his wisdom is not. He said “Our mind is pure and simple. When it is emptied of thought, it enters the pure and simple light of God, and finds nothing but the light.” This Light is pure, infinite Awareness. Consciousness without thought. It is vibrant, resplendent Oneness. It has no separation, no boundary, no structure, no duality, no subject or object, and no action. There is only fresh, luminous Being. Shankara wrote “The Atman, shining with its own light, causes this apparent universe. Its power is infinite. It is the source of all experience.” And the twelfth century sufi, Suhrawardi, wrote “…The Essence of the First, the absolute Light, God, gives constant illumination, whereby It is manifested and brings all things into existence, giving life to them by Its rays. Everything in the world is derived from the light of His Essence, and all beauty and perfection are the gifts of His bounty.” And Emerson tells us, “From within or from behind a light shines through us upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all.”

How come nobody knows about this stuff when so many people know about it?

What bottom dweller in their right mind would believe such a tale?

Well, sure, but when you have all these different people, from all these different centuries and cultures and backgrounds, describing the same things, what bottom dweller in their right mind would be content to keep on bottom dwelling like that’s all there is?

There are very many bottom dwellers among us who would prefer not to be told that there is more to dwell on than just bottoms. Maybe that should be rephrased. In any case, I do find it surprising that these maps are not known to more of those who are aware of a deep longing within them that nothing in this world can completely quench. They are longing for Home, and yet so many of them don’t understand what it is they are actually longing for. But as I’ve said, this is beginning to change.

Now, when one experiences this infinite Ocean of Light, it feels buoyant, spacious and free. There is no structure, no weight, no boundary. It feels absolutely liberating, absolutely energizing, and absolutely exhilarating. And yet, there is a calmness about it. A naturalness. One feels completely at home, completely relaxed, completely safe, completely loved, completely whole. One experiences a profound and unshakable well-being. The phrase “Perfect Peace” is understood through direct and intimate experience. And yet, this experience is so infinite and pure, such descriptions are far too limiting and heavy and complex to accurately express it. One simply IS. Satchitananda– Being, Awareness, Bliss. Complete contentment. Complete well-being. Pure Presence. Pure Awareness. Pure Love. No effort, no action, no trying, no shoulds, no form, no structure, no thought, no need, no longing. It’s the water that quenches our deepest thirst. We plunge into its luminous vastness, and dissolve into the Self.

Swami Yogananda said “Samadhi but extends my conscious realm, beyond the limits of the mortal frame, to the farthest boundary of eternity, where I, the Cosmic Sea, watch the little ego floating in me.” This Cosmic Sea is our origin, our Essence, and our destiny. It is our Home. The Upanishads tell us “As soon as you find it, you are free; you have found yourself; you have solved the great riddle; your heart forever is at peace. Whole, you enter the Whole. Your personal self returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source.”

But this infinite ocean of luminous, immediate Awareness is not the only way Ultimate Reality is experienced. There is something even deeper, even more fundamental that can be experienced.

The Void.

The twentieth century German poet, Rilke, said “Be– and yet know the great void where all things begin, the infinite source of your own most intense vibration, so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.” And Leonardo Da Vinci wrote “Among the great things which are to be found among us, the Being of Nothingness is the greatest.” This Nothingness might be described as being even more simple, more pure, more fundamental than the Light. It is experienced as a majestic emptiness. An infinite, aware darkness. Lao-tzu said–

–Who’s this Loud Zoo guy?

He is said to be the author of the “Tao Te Ching”, written around twenty-five hundred years ago. In it, he wrote “Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.” This darkness is the Absolute, Brahman, that without qualities, the Nameless, the Godhead, the Uncreated. Philo wrote “He who thinks God has any quality and is not the One, injures not God, but himself.” And very similarly, in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said “Whoever believes that the All is deficient is himself deficient.”

It is because it has no attributes that it is sometimes thought of as Nothingness or Emptiness. John Erigena wrote “The term ‘Nothing’ signifies the ineffable, incomprehensible, and inaccessible brilliance of the divine goodness, which is unknown to all intellects, whether human or angelic, because it is super-essential and supernatural… What is properly judged to be above all essence is also known properly in every essence, and for this reason every visible and invisible creature can be called a theophany, that is, a divine appearance.” And the early twentieth century Jewish philosopher, Simone Weil, wrote “The good seems to us as a nothingness, since there is no thing that is good. But this nothingness is not unreal. Compared with it, everything in existence is unreal.” Listen to one of my favorite poems, attributed to Tzu Yeh, a Chinese woman who lived around the fourth century B.C.:

All night I could not sleep.
Because of the moonlight on my bed.
I kept on hearing a voice calling.
Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered “yes”.

I don’t get it.

Just let it be, without trying to get it. If I remember, I’ll say it again in a week or two. It might mean more to more to you then. So, this absolute nothingness is experienced as completely empty. It is the absence of all substance. It’s the absence of everything. It’s even the absence of absence! The ninth century Zen master, Huang-po, said “It does exist, but in a way too marvelous for us to comprehend. It is an existence that is beyond existence, a non-existence that is nevertheless existence.”

It’s incomprehensible to the intellect. No descriptions of it are adequate. No metaphors are satisfactory. This is why it has often been described through negation. It is not presence, not absence, not being, not non-being, not nothing, not something, and so forth. The sixth century Chinese Buddhist monk, Seng-ts’an, said “If you want to describe its essence, the best you can say is ‘Not-two’.” It is experienced as absolute emptiness, and yet often, simultaneously, as being dense and full. It’s full of its emptiness. It’s overflowing with emptiness. Plotinus wrote “It is exactly because there is nothing in It that all things come from It.”

And even though this nothingness is often experienced as dark, it can simultaneously be experienced as luminous. Shimmering. Scintillating. It is majestic, luminous Pure Darkness. Dionysius the Areopagite wrote “The simple, absolute and immutable mysteries of divine Truth are hidden in the super-luminous darkness of that silence which revealeth in secret. For this darkness, though of deepest obscurity, is yet radiantly clear; and, though beyond touch and sight, it more than fills our unseeing minds with splendors of transcendent beauty.”

How can it be luminous and dark at the same time?

This is how it is often experienced. It is darkness, and yet, it is completely overflowing with Energy and Awareness, which is frequently experienced as subtle yet exquisite luminosity.

The only way I can kind of picture this is by thinking of outer space. It’s vast, and mostly empty, but there is tremendous energy, and there are sparkles of light.

We can imagine space before there were any stars. A blackness alive with ungraspable amounts of simple and unstructured energy and potential.

So, there’s the Light, which is Ultimate Reality, and then there’s this luminous darkness, which is even more ultimate?

Sol as in Sun of Light. Many people have experienced this Sun. All of them experience Pure Awareness, Pure Being, Pure Love. All of them experience existence beyond duality, beyond dichotomies, beyond time, beyond space, beyond structure, beyond everything that has been created. There is only Oneness.

Now, some people who experience it find themselves in the brilliant light of the periphery of this Sun. They experience the radiance, the pure energy, the vibrancy. This is their experience of Ultimate Reality. Others experience the center of this Sun. There, all is still, silent, unchanging and dark, like the depths of an ocean. It is a shimmering, living, beautiful, gentle, loving, tender, peaceful Darkness. From this darkness, the infinite Pure Light can be perceived as the radiance which emanates from this Absolute Center. Or, the Light may be perceived as a luminous, wavering, shimmering surface, as the surface of an ocean looks from the depths. So, are they two different things? Yes. Are they two aspects of the same thing? Yes. Are they precisely the same thing perceived with different levels of clarity? Yes. Are they both Ultimate Reality? Yes. Is the Void more ultimate than the Light? Yes.

Thanks for clearing all that up for me.

The mind struggles. The heart nods.

The bladder cries out in dismay.

Shall we take a break?

No, just take it easy on the water metaphors for a while. I guess I shouldn’t drink so much pop for breakfast. Just trying to get the Recommended Daily Addiction of the essentials.

Sugar and caffeine?

Not to mention artificial preservatives.  Let your skin drink it in.

In any case, let me try to describe the Indescribable in a different way.

* * * * * *

Mystics in every major spiritual tradition describe experiencing two aspects of Ultimate Reality: First, the formless, empty, motionless Godhead, the Pure Brahman, the Creator, the Absolute, the Source, the Ground of all being. And second, God, the Light, the Spirit, the Living Word, the Sustainer, the Flowing Fountain of Essence. For the mystic, there is so much inexpressible beauty, so much absolutely exquisite bliss in the Flow of the Light. Yet, they want only to surrender it. To let go even of that most divine of forms. For beneath that final, most subtle veil lies the Formless, the Pure, the Unnamable, the Source, the Godhead. That which gives birth to all form. That is the Purest Truth, and so it is their greatest Beloved.

So the Godhead is like Absolute Reality, and then from that there’s like a flow of Essence that comes into the world. And you could call that God or the Spirit or the Light or whatever.

Yes. Of course, from the purest perspective, there is no difference, no duality. There is only the One. The eleventh century Jewish mystic, Ibn Gabirol, said “There is no distinction between Godhead, Unity, Eternity or Existence; for all is one mystery; and although each of these attributes is variously named, yet all of them point to One.” And listen to Ramakrishna: “When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive– neither creating nor preserving nor destroying– I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active– creating, preserving, destroying– I call Him Shakti or Maya or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and the Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its luster… It is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one.”

But the way we’re talking about it now, Ultimate Reality is like the center of the sun, and the Light is like the rays.

Right. Eckhart wrote “Creatures speak of God– but why do they not mention the Godhead? Because there is only unity in the Godhead and there is nothing to talk about. God acts. The Godhead does not.” And the fourteenth century Christian mystic, Henry Suso, wrote “The immediate vision of the naked Godhead is without doubt the pure truth.” And Saint John of the Cross: “The Soul that is attached to anything, however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union.” Eckhart agrees: “… any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the Inmost Truth.”

But hang on. It kind of sounds like if you’re really longing to be one with God, that will keep it from happening.

Exactly. The seventeenth century German priest, Johannes Scheffler, also known as Angelus Silesius, wrote “God is a pure no-thing, concealed in now and here: the less you reach for him, the more he will appear.” And the eleventh century Sufi, Hamid al Ghazali, wrote “The final goal of love is to become bare as a desert. Just before this ultimate station is reached, the form of the Beloved appears in all its perfection and falls as an obstacle between lover and love.” He goes on to tell us that we must remove this final veil. When you let go of your attachment to every face of your Beloved, you dissolve into that Faceless Truth, the Pure, unchanging, infinite Still Point at the center of existence. Saint Augustine wrote “That alone is truly real which abides unchanged.”

As long as there is something, anything, that you are holding onto or trying to get, there is more to let go of. There is farther to fall. The fourteenth century friar, John Tauler, put it this way: “… Never cease to enter in; entering ever further in, ever nearer, so as to sink the deeper in an unknown and unnamed abyss; and, above all ways, images and forms, and above all powers, to lose thyself, deny thyself, and even unform thyself… In this lost condition nothing is to be seen but a ground which rests upon itself, everywhere one Being, one Life.” Says Eckhart, “Here the soul and the Godhead are one.” Hadewijch the Second, the name given to an anonymous thirteenth century nun, wrote–

–So there was a Hadewijch the First? You don’t hear about a lot of mother-daughter nuns these days.

Some of the writings that had been attributed to the thirteenth century nun, Hadewijch of Antwerp, have a different style and vocabulary. So scholars think it was a different writer, that they call Hadewijch the Second. Whoever she was, she was unwavering in her free fall into the Divine Depths . She said “If I desire something, I know it not, for in boundless unknowing I have lost my very self. In His mouth I am engulfed, in a bottomless abyss; never could I come out of it.” The true lover of God or Reality or Essence wants nothing more than to let go of every form of God, and die into the Superabundant Abyss of the Godhead, the Absolute, the Nectarous Void of Pure Being.

Listen to the fourteenth century Christian mystic, John Ruysbroeck. “The infinite Undifferentiation of the Godhead is so dark and so naked of all image, that it conceals within itself all the divine qualities and works… and here there is a death in fruition, and a melting and dying into the nudity of Pure Being; where all the Names of God, and all conditions, and all the living images which are reflected in the mirror of divine truth, are absorbed into the Ineffable Simplicity, the Absence of image and of knowledge… There is nothing else here but an eternal rest in the fruitive embrace of an outpouring love; and this is the wayless Being that all interior souls have chosen above all other things. This is the dim silence where all lovers lose themselves.”

I didn’t follow most of that, but that last part sounded more scary than comforting.

There can be terrifying moments at first. Resting in the infinite, superabundant, gentle Emptiness of the Mother of Existence is only possible when we have shed all of the false skins we believe ourselves to be. In “The Chronicles of Narnia”, the greed of the boy, Eustace, turned him into a dragon. Aslan the great lion came to him and cut deeply into his tough dragon skin with razor claws, peeling away layer after layer of all that was not an innocent child. We can imagine it was the most excruciating, terrifying ecstasy. The pain of liberation.

The anonymous fourteenth century author of “The Theologia Germanica” wrote “No one can be enlightened unless he be first cleansed or purified and stripped.” The pure child within is completely unscarred by this stripping away of our heavy dragon skins. But no matter how many times we hear this, as these false selves begin to fall away, it usually feels as though we are being torn away from Life. All that we thought we were is cast aside. We believe this will be the end of our existence, and so we resist it with all our might. And Aslan, would never free us of our skins without our absolute permission. The truth is, once we’re honestly willing to let them fall away, they do so on their own. They only cling to us because of our desperate grip. And once our old skins are gone, there is finally room for something new and pure to replace them.

That kind of reminds me of the seeds of some pine trees. They can’t break out of their cones until they’re exposed to the heat of a forest fire. So they can’t grow till all the life on the surface gets burned to the ground.

Exactly! The old must die for the new to be born. Before the butterfly can emerge, the caterpillar must fall apart and die to itself. It must allow its outer structure to dissolve into a chrysalis that is completely helpless, completely vulnerable, and absolutely lame. To the old you, it’s hell. The hell of metamorphosis.

.There’s this joke: These two young caterpillars are walking along and they see a butterfly fluttering around. So one says to the other, “You’d never catch me up in one of those things!” I guess the point is, before it’s happened, you don’t really have a clue what you’re going to become.

That’s true. You just know that the old you, the only one you know, will be finished. So let me return your story with another one. One morning, an old caterpillar was crawling along when a beautiful butterfly fluttered down beside him. The caterpillar looked up, startled and amazed. “Are you an angel?” he asked. The butterfly asked him, “What is an angel?” “Well”, the caterpillar said. “I’ve never seen one, but some say they are real. I’ve heard they look like us, except they have beautiful wings. And they use them to fly to places we can only dream about. And I’ve heard, that instead of eating leaves, they actually drink the sweet nectar of flowers!” The butterfly laughed and said, “Well then, I must be an angel.” Then, with a gentle smile, she asked him, “Tell me, old worm, have you ever thought of spinning yourself a nice warm cocoon?” At this, the caterpillar sighed heavily. “Beautiful creature,” he said. “I have often felt the longing. But I have no time for just lying around in a hammock. It takes me all day just to crawl from tree to tree.”

But we’ve jumped ahead again. We’ll talk more of this shedding of our false skins in the coming days. So, let’s move on.

* * * * * *

I want us to discuss a basic conceptual model of how the Source manifests itself into reality. Now as I’ve mentioned several times, all of the layers of reality and everything in them are all Essence. So, we have the Source as infinite, pure, aware Oneness, and we have the Source as it exists in all the levels of manifest reality. This post-prism part of Sol, vast as it is, is an infinitesimal part of the Essence.

Now, in simplest terms, we may understand the post-prism Essence as consisting of two different aspects, that might be called Pure Awareness and structure. Pure Awareness retains all of the original attributes of the Source. It’s the Source unaltered. Pure Awareness is Essence. However, structure, while it is still Essence at its most fundamental level, organizes itself in a way that it no longer has the properties of the Source, just as, in our level of reality, energy organizes itself in a way that gives it the properties of matter. It is still energy, and it becomes matter. Likewise, structure is still Essence, and it becomes something different. It takes on different properties. So, the post-prism Pure Awareness never becomes something other than Solness, while the post-prism structure does. Are you following me?

If I am it’s from pretty far behind. I mean, that was in simplest terms? I guess I’m out of shape for these mental marathons. These days, just about everything comes in easy to swallow, pre-dissolved info-bites. The modern motto is, “If you can’t sum it up with a slogan, simplify it till you can.” It’s all ten second sound bites nowadays. If you want to reach the masses, you’ve got to cater to their short attention span.

And you’re asking me to cater to yours?

Sorry? I tuned out in the middle of your question.

I’ll take that as a “yes”.

At least take it a little slower. What do you mean by “structure”?

We spoke the other day of the post-prism Essence being both a matrix around which everything in every level of reality manifests, and the stuff out of which everything that is in reality is formed. Both of these are structures. By structure, I mean any kind of form. Any kind of matrix, pattern, formation or system. Every thing in every layer of created reality, from the most subtle to the most dense, is all structure. Structures range from the most simple, which are the least removed from the Essence, to the most complex, which exist in our level of reality. What we normally think of as solid matter is made of complex energetic structures, which are made of more simple structures, which are made of more simple structures, all the way back to the most simple structures, which are organized into existence directly out of the Source. Everything that is not Pure Essence is structure.

Okay.

Now, if there is only Oneness, Beingness, Essence, how can its infinite superabundance overflow in a way that creates? If it only creates more Essence, then that Essence would stay merged within the Oneness and nothing new or different would be created. It would have only created more of its infinite self. So, it must create something from itself that is different than itself. Otherwise, it isn’t creating. It’s just adding to its already overflowing self. Does that much make sense?

I think so. If it’s overflowing with infinite creative potential, it has to create something other than itself, or else it really isn’t creating anything, it’s just adding to itself, and it’s already overflowing. If all this superabundance just keeps going back into itself, sooner or later it’s bound to be so overflowing, so superabundant, so charged, if that word works, that all of that creative impulse and ability creates something beyond itself. Different from itself. The cosmic sneeze.

Yes, exactly. Now, Infinite Essence is all there is. There is nothing else. There is nothing beyond it. The term “beyond it” doesn’t even apply. It cannot create anything outside of itself. It cannot create something outside of its boundaries, for Essence has no boundaries. No edges, no end, no external limits at all. So, whatever it creates must be within itself. It cannot create something “over there”. Anything created by Pure Being must be created within it.

Yeah! You’ve said we’re always in this Essence. Well now that makes some sense. It’s infinite. There’s nothing beyond it. So everything finite must be within it!

Exactly. The fifteenth century priest, Nicholas of Cusa, wrote “I see Thee to be Infinity Itself, wherefore nothing is alien to Thee, nothing differing from Thee, nothing opposed to Thee. For the Infinite allows no otherness from Itself, since, being Infinity, nothing exists outside It: absolute Infinity includes and contains all things.”

So we’re always within the Source! It’s not up there somewhere, someplace else. We’re in it! Everything is in it! It seems so obvious now. So simple.

The Infinite is absolute Simplicity. It’s the finite that becomes so complex. Now, for the Source to create something different from itself, with different properties than itself, but that is also within itself, it must create something that allows difference, separation, boundary. It must create some simple membrane, some wall, some division that allows for separateness. It must create structure. Structure doesn’t retain the infinite and boundless properties of Sol. We could say that structure takes that infiniteness and focuses it on developing more structure, on becoming more complex, on creating all that can be created from itself. It is the very nature of structure to create infinite combinations of structure with all of the creative energy and power of its inherent and infinite Solness. In a sense, this is its program, its directive. To organize itself with ever increasing complexity. So, the creative tension, the uncontainable impulse of the superabundant, overflowing Source resulted in the creation of something from itself that had different properties than itself, and that would continue to be an outlet for its limitless creative energy. And this happened through the arising of structure, with its inherent tendency towards diversity and complexity.

This is kind of scary. I think I’m actually starting to follow you. You know, I remember reading that in the beginning of the universe, hydrogen and helium were the only two elements. Then they formed stars that created more complex elements. And from those elements planets were formed, and on our planet those elements combined in more and more complex ways, until eventually life developed. And life has evolved into more and more complex systems as well, which led to a species that actually consciously creates more and more complex physical and mental structures. My theory is that all of this is leading up to us reaching the pinnacle of human ingenuity, which will happen with the arrival of the implanted computer/iphone with built in surround sound and a contact lens screen display. At which point things will pretty much start to fall apart and go in reverse until there’s just a lot of helium and hydrogen again, so that if any humans do manage to survive, they’ll talk really funny.

Anyway, what really hit me about this is that all of the atoms that make up the Earth were once in stars. So, our skin, our eyes, our blood, our hearts, our entire physical bodies, are made up of atoms that were once part of a flaming sun! We literally came from the stars! I think that’s amazing.

What a gift, friend! The atoms in the air we breathe, in the water we drink, in the food we eat, each one of them has had an amazing journey! What secrets do these atoms hold? How many lives have they lived? And what is this body I wear, but a trillion sparks of an ancient sun, dancing together in celebration and remembrance. Ahhh, we have danced together before, long ago. And with every breath, new atoms join in the dance, and others whirl outward for a new adventure. Rich journey friends! I have been honored by your shimmering presence!

Twinkle, twinkle ancient star, how I’ve wondered where you are. Now I know the answer true. You’re inside me! I’m inside you!

Our bodies came from ancient suns. Suns the Source created. But we, we are the ancient ones. The stars are over rated!

“The stars are over rated”?

It was all I could think of. Here’s a better one:–

–Maybe you should quit while you’re behind.

No, this one’s from Rilke: “A billion stars spinning through the night, blazing high above your head. But IN you is the presence that will be, when all the stars are dead.”

I actually like that one. Anyway, I just mentioned that because you were talking about structure becoming more complex.

Yes, and what a wonderful example! Amazing. All right. Let’s continue.

* * * * * *

Now, because of the infinite creative potential within the Source, it can’t help but create ways to manifest this superabundant potential into actuality. Plotinus wrote “The One, perfect because It seeks nothing and needs nothing, overflows, as it were, and Its superabundance makes something, as it were, other than Itself, which is Being.” The existence of structure or form or being provides an incredible outlet for this creative potential. And yet, the limitless creativity of the Source found a way to increase the creative potential of this outlet to an ungraspable degree.

You recall that the second post-prism aspect, what I’m calling “Pure Awareness”, retains all of the original attributes of Essence. And yet, this awareness, which is not different from Essence, becomes an aspect of created reality. How? If the superabundance of Sol is unceasingly creating more Solness, what could keep some of that Solness, which we could also call Pure Awareness, from melting right back into the Source? What could let it become differentiated? Separate? Distinctive?

I don’t know. Some kind of a boundary. Some kind of structure, I guess.

Exactly. Structure. All that is needed to separate a little ocean water from a vast ocean is a small container. The water is still in and of the ocean, but the container around it creates different possibilities for it than it had when it was completely undifferentiated from the ocean. Likewise, all that is needed to separate some of the Essence from the entire Essence is a basic structure, a boundary, a container of sorts. If the Essence is like an ocean, structure is like ice, made of the same element, but organized more solidly. Structural boundaries open the door to entirely new creative possibilities.

So, we have the Essence. Then we have structure, which is created from the Essence. And even though it is Essence, structure doesn’t keep the attributes of Essence.

Like energy that makes up matter is still energy, but it doesn’t keep the attributes it had when it was just energy.

Right. So structure begins very simply, and then organizes itself into more and more complex patterns and forms. And through this process, the various levels of reality were created, and filled in with an endless variety of structures.

And because the Source is absolutely infinite, without end or boundaries, all of this is happening inside of it.

Yes. There is no outside. Now there are also simple structures that serve as boundaries or containers which keep the Pure Awareness or Solness that is within them differentiated from the rest of Essence. Since one way to understand Sol is as the Light, one way to conceptualize these many individual, separate, differentiated parts of Essence is as sparks of Light. The structural boundaries that allow for the existence of these individual sparks of Light allow them to have different experiences, different configurations, different qualities. In other words, uniqueness. Now, what is another word we might use to refer to one of these individual sparks of Light? What else might we call it?

A soul! You’re talking about souls!

Exactly!

So a soul is just a part of the Essence that has a boundary around it that makes it separate!

Right. Or, more accurately, that structural boundary, that thinnest of structural membranes, creates a powerful illusion of separateness. As we will discuss, structure can never truly contain or limit Pure Awareness. But you are correct that the essence of a soul is the Essence itself. They are the same Essence. Plotinus wrote “The differentiated souls issue from the Unity and strike out here and there, but are united at the Source much as light is a divided thing on earth, shining in this house and that, and yet remains one. One Soul is the source of all souls; It is at once divided and undivided… All Being, despite this plurality, is Unity still.” And Saint Bernard wrote, in the twelfth century,–

–There was really some guy named Saint Bernard?

Yes.

Did he slobber?

I will continue.

Please do.

He said “In those respects in which the soul is unlike God, it is also unlike itself.” And the thirteenth century Sufi, Ibn Arabi, said “When the mystery of the oneness of the soul and the Divine is revealed to you, you will understand that you are no other than God.” And Eckhart wrote “The Ground of God and the Ground of the soul are one and the same.”

Our Essence is the Essence. This may be the most important and fundamental truth of reality. Our true identity is the Source. The Center of our being is Pure Being. This has been discovered and rediscovered countless times throughout the centuries. The Upanishads: “You are That.” Muhammad: “Whoever knows himself knows God.” Jesus: “I and my Father are one.” Eckhart: “My eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” Saint Catherine of Genoa: “My Me is God, nor do I recognize any other me except my God Himself.” The tenth century Sufi, Mansur al-Hallaj: “I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I.” Shankara: “As Brahman constitutes a person’s Self, it is not something to be attained by that person.”

All who have deeply experienced the Source intimately realize that it’s not separate from their own being. Jesus: “The kingdom of Heaven is within you.” Kabir: “My beloved master lives inside”. Walt Whitman: “There is no other god any more divine than yourself.” Yazid al-Bistami: “I sloughed off my self as a snake sloughs off its skin. Then I looked into myself and saw that I am He.” And again, Eckhart: “Simple people imagine that they should see God, as if He stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one.”

In Saint Teresa of Avila’s writings, God tells her “And should by chance you do not know were to find me, do not go here and there; But if you wish to find Me, in yourself seek Me.” And Rumi echoes, “…Finally, when I peered into my own heart, there and no where else was His Home.” Saint Augustine put it this way: “Too late I loved You, oh Beauty so ancient yet ever new! Too late I loved You! And, behold, You were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for You.” And Madame Guyon Du Chesnoy, a seventeenth century Christian mystic, wrote “O, my Lord, you were within my heart, and you asked of me only that I should return within, in order that I might feel your presence. O, Infinite Goodness, you were so near, and I, running here and there to seek you, found you not!

The ninth century Zen master, Tung-shan, wrote “If you look for the truth outside yourself it gets farther away. Today, walking alone, I meet him everywhere I step. He is the same as me, yet I am not him. Only if you understand it in this way will you merge with the way things are.” And the thirteenth century Sufi poet, Fakhruddin Iraqi, said “Beloved, I sought You here and there, asked for news of You from all I met. Then I saw You through myself, and found we were identical. Now I blush to think I ever searched for signs of You.” And similarly, the fourteenth century Indian poet and mystic, Lalla, said “Playfully, you hid from me. All day I looked. Then I discovered I was you, and the celebration of That began.”

They’re all saying the same thing. I looked everywhere, then I found you in me. The Real me is You.

Yes, it is such an amazing, profound moment when we truly realize:

For so long, I searched for you
But you always seemed another step away
Until somehow, through Grace, I saw the Truth
And I’m grateful and humbled more than words can say

You’re closer than the wind on my face
Closer than these tears in my eyes
Closer than the tightest embrace
Closer than this heart that keeps me alive

You are the Mother of all that lives
The Essence of all that flows
The Pure Heart in all that lives
You are the Center of the soul

So when mystics talk about being one with God, they’re talking about being one with this Center. With Essence.

Yes. One with the Divine. One with the Source. One with Ultimate Reality. One with the Uncreated. One with Pure Being. One.

When all the layers of structure you have been attached to are released, you experience Pure Layerlessness. Pure Structurelessness. Limitless, boundaryless Oneness. All is One. All is Essence. All is Self. All is the Purest Love, the Purest Being. Saint Catherine of Genoa said “Sometimes I do not see or feel myself to have either soul, body, heart, will or taste, or anything else except Pure Love.” Am I overloading you with all these quotes?

No, I like them. It’s kind of in one ear and out the other, but it’s interesting to hear how all these different people are basically saying the same things. Although, I think I’ve got it figured it out. You’re really reading all these quotes from a prototype pair of nano-computer contact lens screens.

You’re on to me.

You know, you can probably get them cheaper if you don’t mind advertisements flashing on them all day long.

I’ll have to look into that. In any case, once we deeply realize that our true self is actually Essence, the small self can be seen as a vessel for its spontaneous expression. Shakespeare wrote “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.” We are no longer attached to this vessel. We no longer grasp it tightly with our own agendas and control. We let the Flow of Essence move through us, as we endlessly fall into the fathomless depths of Pure Being. Eckhart wrote “… For though she sinks all sinking in the oneness of divinity, she never touches bottom. For it is of the very essence of the soul that she is powerless to plumb the depths of her creator. And here one cannot speak of the soul anymore, for she has lost her nature yonder in the oneness of divine essence. There she is no more called soul, but is called Immeasurable Being.”

In this most pristine, intimate, immediate experience of what is, the perception of separation and duality dissolves. Hamid al-Ghazali wrote “When multiplicity has been eliminated, unity is established and relationship ceases… There remains only the One, the Real, and the meaning of the words ‘All things perish except for His face’ is known by experience.” And Saraha wrote “In this state of highest bliss there is neither self nor other… Everything is Buddha without exception.” The subject and the object, the actor and the action, the cause and the effect, the creator and the created, are all seen in their pristine unity. Seng-ts’an, wrote “When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness, we return to the Origin, and remain where we have always been.” Listen to Ramakrishna: “It is God Himself who has become everything; whatever I see is only a form of God. It is He alone who has become maya, the universe, and all living beings. Nothing exists but God.” And Rumi: “I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one: one I seek, one I know, one I see, one I call. He is the first, he is the last. He is the outward, he is the inward.”

Okay. That’s probably getting pretty close to quote overload. Or at least maybe just spread them out a little more. So what’s maya?

This dream. All of the created levels of reality that seem as an illusion when compared to the Pure Light of the Real. But they are not separate from this Ultimate Reality. Nothing is other than the One. And when we’re fully resting within the Heart of Pure Essence, we see this to be true. I can’t help quoting Rumi again here. “Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down on that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.”

This is the place the maps lead to. This is the place where the journey of the soul begins and ends. We lie on that grass, close our eyes, and imagine grand adventures. And Essence is our very being, and it is the grass, and it is a cozy blanket that embraces us while we dream. It creates for us a magnificent stage, on which the fable of a great journey is enacted. Very convincingly. But in truth, the prodigal son never left. No ray of Light ever leaves the Heart of Sol. For that Heart is endless. And we are never other than it.

Okay. I can understand the idea that, if our essence is the Essence itself, we’re essentially the Essence. But obviously there’s something else going on. I mean, what the hell happened? We don’t exactly have the same qualities as you say the Essence has. Personally, I don’t feel particularly blissful or luminous or infinite most of the time. Although my bladder is getting pretty close to overflowing with superabundance.

We’ve been discussing how reality can be seen as dimorphic, meaning existing in two different forms: Essence, which some traditions refer to as “the Self”, and structure. Your Self is the Self. However, our individual selves, or souls, are encapsulated in structure. The farther we enter into manifest reality, the heavier and thicker structure becomes, and the stronger the pull to identify with structure as opposed to our True Self. In this level of reality, most of us are so immersed in structures– physical, psychological, and energetic– that we have all but completely forgotten what we really are. It’s not actually the heavy structures of this world that are the problem. It is our identification and attachment to them. It is the supreme value we give them. We’ll discuss this more in a few days.

So, a soul is encapsulated in a structural boundary that creates the experience of being a differentiated individual. It can now have unique experiences, and create in unique ways. It can now interact. It can make choices. It can dissolve into and withdraw from the Source as it likes. It can commune with other souls if it wishes. It can explore the various levels of reality if it chooses.

How can a soul enter and leave the Source if it has a structural boundary around it? And what makes one soul different from another if they all have the same Essence? And what do you mean by communing with other souls? And while I’m at it, where did moths gather before there was artificial lighting? You know? Where did they hang out? I mean, did they try to fly to the moon? Did they try to catch up with lightning? Did they chase fire flies around? It’s a hell of a mystery.  And why do fire extinguishers have a warning that says “Keep away from high temperatures”? Now there’s a well designed piece of equipment.

And here’s another one that really bugs me. Why are hunters most proud of themselves when they hit the biggest target? You know? I mean, how hard can it really be to shoot an elephant? Or a moose or a bear? When you think about it, if they really want to prove how good they are, they should see how small an animal they can kill. They could go on their hunting trips and come back with a little hamster tied to the roof of their car.  “Hey, Billy Bob, what’s that mounted on your wall there, next to the cock roach?” “That there’s a Southwestern Grasshopper. Two point buck.”And see that little black speck mounted next to it? That’s a flea. I shot that sucker right in the air, just as it was jumping off Junior!  And see that tiny dot next to it? Here, use my new Swiss Army knife with an electron microscope.” “Damn! You shot yourself a cold virus! Looks like strain 266B, if I’m not mistaken. They’re quick little suckers too. I shot one once. Used a Smith and Wesson Micro-Dart. I just wounded it though. It probably got an infection and died later on.

Maybe we could get back on track.

Are you sure? I could go on for a while if you want.

Quite sure.

Alright, but it’s your loss.

* * * * * *

So how can a soul enter and leave the Essence?

Clearly, if people can experience the Source, in spite of all of the structures between it and our level of reality, a soul unencumbered by all those layers can as well. Plotinus wrote “You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer– in which the divine essence is communicated to you. This is ecstasy. Like can only apprehend like; when you thus cease to be finite, you become one with the infinite. In the reduction of your soul to its simplest self, its divine essence, you realize this union– this identity.”

There is so much in these words! This reduction of our soul to its simplest self is the dis-identification from structure. Our simplest self is nothing other than Pure Being. When we let go of all that is not our True Self, our True Self is all that remains. The twentieth century sage, Ramana Maharshi, described this as a process of letting go of our habit of seeing the unreal as real. He said “When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then reality alone will remain, and we will be that.” To put it another way,–

–Please.

Once we are able to truly see structure for what it is, subordinate to Pure Awareness, to Essence, to our True Nature, to our Self, then we will no longer be confined by it, and it will no longer keep us from realizing our true identity, Essence itself. This is the meaning of Self realization– to experientially and continuously realize that our self is the Self. In the ancient Indian epic, “The Ramayana”, Hanuman tells the Lord, “When I identify with the body, I am your servant. When I identify with the soul, I am a part of You. But when I identify with the Self, I am truly You.”

Will you say that one again?

“When I identify with the body, I am your servant. When I identify with the soul, I am a part of You. But when I identify with the Self, I am truly You.” Beautiful, isn’t it?

So all those people you were quoting were basically saying they were one with God. That they were experiencing themselves as the Self, which is the same as Pure Being. It’s like the purest part of us that’s always there.

Exactly. The Center of the soul. This is not just being aware of our soul as a part of God, but dissolving away even those boundaries, so that there is no longer any boundary between our consciousness and Pure Consciousness. This is re-membering our True Self. In the twelfth century, Hugh of Saint Victor wrote “To ascend to God is to enter into oneself, and not only to enter into oneself, but, in some unsayable manner, in the inmost parts to pass beyond oneself. He who can, as it were, enter into himself and, going deeper and deeper, pass beyond himself, truly ascends to God.” And Eckhart wrote “As the soul becomes more pure and bare and poor, and possesses less of created things, and is emptied of all things that are not God, it receives God more purely, and is more completely in Him; and it truly becomes one with God.”

But even when we aren’t there yet, our Essence is still always that.

And so it is not truly locked into this world. Even when we’re identified with our small selves, what we always truly are is never actually trapped in these heavy bodies and minds. The Self, the Essence, is the first cause, the most fundamental. And so it cannot truly be contained by structure, which is less fundamental, and therefore subordinate to it. A dream is subordinate to the dreamer. Without the dreamer, there can be no dream. But when we find ourselves in a dream, we usually forget that our dream is subordinate to us. We forget our primacy. And so, we find ourselves subject to and confined by the plot and limitations of the dream. We become stuck within it, at its mercy. We have forgotten that there is so much more to us than the way we are presently experiencing ourselves.

Compared to Essence, structure is superficial. But through the process of identifying with structure, the soul begins to forget its True Nature. It begins to forget that structure cannot confine it. It comes to believe that the immediacy and intensity of the world of structure must be accompanied by the primacy of it. And, as it believes, so it is. But before a soul begins to sink into complexity, it finds it quite easy to dis-identify with the thin membrane of structure that creates the experience of separateness. And so, it can fully experience itself as its True Nature, Infinite Essence, as it wishes. Listen to Plotinus again: “Souls are apart without partition; they are no more hedged off by boundaries than are the multiple items of knowledge in one mind. The one Soul so exists as to include all souls.”

That actually makes some sense.

Good. Now, I believe your second question was how can each soul be unique. Care to give it a try?

I don’t know. But it seems like the individuality would have to come from the structures and experiences and all. The pure Essence might be all the same, but the structures wouldn’t have to be. Like you might say: One Light. Many sparks.

Yes, exactly.

Feel free to use that in your next talk. No charge.

The twentieth century Indian master, Meher Baba, said “All souls are infinite and eternal. They are formless. All souls are One; there is no difference in Souls or in their being and existence as Souls. There is difference in the consciousness of Souls… there is difference in the experience of Souls and there is difference in the state of Souls.” So the Essence of each soul is identical. It is their different experiences, their different interactions, and their different structural patterns that create their uniqueness.

I believe your third question was about souls communing with each other. When one is fully experiencing Essence, one experiences absolute intimacy. We tend to assume that intimacy requires two: yourself and another. It’s true that this is the way we usually go about experiencing it. But the feelings of connectedness, contentment, well-being, security, peace, openness, armorlessness, tenderness, meltingness, boundarylessness, and love that merge together into the feeling of intimacy do not require an other to experience. The Essence is “not-two”. There is no other. There is also no separation. When one merges with Essence, all of the layers have been removed. All of the structure. One experiences Essence fully and completely, without the slightest boundaries. This experience is one of absolute intimacy.

Now, a soul can choose to experience this absolute intimacy of Oneness. But it can also experience otherness, differentiation. This creates a new possibility for intimacy: that of merging into another. Two beings come together and experience the Oneness, the Essence, that is the True Nature of them both. While their structures are different, their Essence is the same. This communion is exquisitely beautiful. Two hearts literally merging into one, while simultaneously dissolving into the One Heart of God. It is experiencing Pure Being, while sharing this experience with another, while also experiencing the subtle flavors, the aromas, the colorings, the textures, the harmonies that are unique to the other. Of course, communion is also an important part of the human experience. But the dense structures of this level of reality usually greatly dilute and diminish the experience of merging hearts. Yet we can often still sense the truth and beauty in it, the pure communion into Oneness that it represents and sometimes touches.

All right. Enough for today. Now, my friend, I shall take a walk towards the evening sun, in gratitude for its radiant sustenance. And I will send it greetings from the ancient sparks of its ancestors, that now dance within me.

The early twentieth century Russian poet, Anna Akhamatova, wrote “Sunset in the ethereal waves; I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.”

You mean it’s kind of like a story or a myth?

Right. Anytime we gain any knowing of deeper levels of reality, it is always filtered through our own limited mind before we can conceptually understand it. And then when we try to convert that understanding into something that can be communicated, it brings it further into the limitations of ideas we can relate to in this world. So, as I go into this, rather than struggling with the accuracy of each detail, you can take in the overall sense of it, and just see how it feels.

Lay it on me.

So, the most subtle layer of structural reality is what we might conceptualize as a community of souls. In this level, structure only exists in a very simple and basic way, primarily as the structural boundary around souls. Beings of Light in this level are free to enter and leave the Light as they wish, meaning they can experience themselves as their true and infinite Essence, and they can also experience existence within the perspective of their individual structural boundaries. While it may sound paradoxical, they can experience both aspects of their existence simultaneously. They can experience themselves as Pure Infinite Being, while also experiencing themselves as a specific and unique manifestation of it. They are not only overflowing with radiant potential, they also have the individuality to express it in unique ways. And there are endless worlds before them. This community of Light beings is at the threshold of structural reality. It’s at the gateway of the vast world of structural manifestations, of which our universe is but a small part.

So if I’m following you, it’s like there are all these cosmic fire flies buzzing around, itching to do something with all of their potential. And right in front of them there’s one hell of a playground.

Yes. The stage is set. Or, we might say, endless stages are set. These Light beings have only to put on their heavy structural costumes and enter.

Reminds me of that old movie, “Cocoon”. It was on the other night. It was about these alien life forms that were some kind of energy beings. They could float and fly and manipulate energy. But they covered themselves with fake skin a