Something in you already knows.
Does anything more need to be said? Just look at this baby. Did he need to learn to be happy? Did you? This indescribable joy is here simply because you exist. This is enough.
We have been taught that it takes great effort, searching and many practices to attain this happiness. But this is a huge lie. It has always been here. It is inseparable from what we are. We’ve just forgotten this. Perhaps this picture can remind us.
Sitting on the roof today,
I notice the sun sparkling in tiny rain puddles.
This is both an expression of life
and the totality of all life.
The sun, the rain, the puddles, the roof
are all unique expressions of life
and each is also the totality of life.
As is the one who observes this interesting paradox.
Here there is a body, a brain, eyes that perceive.
This is also a unique expression of life
and at the same time the totality of all life.
Imagine for a moment that you as a person ceased to exist.
Would the totality of life cease to exist because the person no longer did?
We can easily see that this is not so.
Bodies and persons die all the time
and life as a whole continues on.
But how would the person fare if the totality of life ceased to exist?
The person could not be without the totality of life.
So this totality of life is reliable. It is unchanging.
It does not come and go as persons do.
Resting in this totality, I know who I truly am.
I see both the unique expressions that come and go,
absolutely miraculous in their nature,
and the totality that never changes.
And I am both.
Neither can be separated from the other.
Non-duality must include duality.
Duality must include non-duality.
Here is where words fail.
All dissolves into one.
Discrimination no longer makes sense.
Even the concept of life disintegrates.
Before material existence,
there is life of a different sort.
I call it pre-life life,
but it doesn’t need my description.
It too cannot be separated.
Form and formless are one.
So I rest here as the totality of all life.
And this unique expression too.
No different from the sun sparkling in this tiny puddle
or the air caressing this face.
There is no separation anywhere.
And this is the only Truth we need to know.
The illusion of the self is just an illusion. It is a role we put on. It is useful and practical in the world. It is only when we believe it that it creates problems.
Think of it like this. You are sitting at home watching a soap opera on television. At the same time you are also playing the role of one of the characters. All of you are characters in the soap opera. None of you are real. Nothing that happens in the soap opera is real.
You can tell because none if it actually affects you. If a fire rages on the soap opera, you are not burned. If your character in the soap opera is murdered and dies, you do not die. You are unaffected by everything that happens on the soap opera. And you are also aware of everything that happens on the soap opera.
If you forget you are watching a soap opera and believe that you actually are the character you are playing, then the mischief, confusion and suffering begins. You celebrate when your character wins the lottery or marries his beautiful co-star. You cry and moan when your character gets cancer or divorced. And celebrating and crying are all part of the soap opera. But when you know who you are, when you know you are just watching this whole show and unaffected by all of it, you no longer believe it.
You play your part. And this part may be quite different from the part you played when you believed your role was real. You may even play the part of someone who tells the other characters this is just a soap opera and they are really perfectly okay no matter what is happening on the soap opera. That’s not a very popular role. But occasionally some of the characters will actually listen. And a few will even remember who they really are. Perhaps they will even join you on the couch and you can laugh together about how real it all seemed and how wonderful it is that is wasn’t.
