Here is a Persian carpet. Now you are looking at the whole carpet. You see the overall design and how it all fits together. But imagine your face was pressed up against the carpet and you could only see a small isolated part of it. Imagine further that you have taken a magnifying glass out or your pocket and you are looking at the small section you now see through the magnifying glass. Now image further that you are looking at that smaller section through a microscope. You are looking only at a section of one individual thread of this entire carpet.
Imagine further that you had never seen the entire carpet as is shown in this picture. Imagine you had only seen this single section of thread. Do you think you could describe the entire carpet and its design from looking only at this single thread? Of course not.
And this is exactly the view we have of life when we are lost in the dream. We have narrowed our focus so greatly that we can no longer see the big picture. We don’t even know the big picture exists except in our imaginations. We use words like God or All That Is or Enlightenment or the Cosmos to describe the big picture. But we don’t see it. All we see is a single thread. And this single thread we call our life, we call reality, we call all that is.
So awakening is simply seeing the whole carpet. We see the single thread. We see all the other threads. We see how the threads all work together to create the whole tapestry. We see all of this. We have a wide perspective. We have taken the blinders off or they have simply fallen off, which is much more likely. And now the entire carpet is available. We recognize what we had previously believed was all of life as only this single little section of thread. Yes, the thread is here too. But in the whole picture it is not nearly as important as we had thought. And also not disconnected from the whole carpet. That little section of thread is intimately linked to the whole thread and all the other threads.
When we experience our life as only this one isolated section of thread of course we suffer. Try as we have, it still really makes no sense. We don’t see the overall design so we can’t see our place in the design either. We don’t admit it to ourselves, but we really feel life is meaningless or we don’t know the meaning of it. We try through reading spiritual books to find some meaning. We even call it the “meaning of life” as if we need to find some Guru to explain it to us. Because it is all we can see, this single section of thread becomes extremely important. We do everything we can to protect it and keep it safe. In doing this we resist the rest of the thread in favor of this one tiny section and we resist the other threads connected to it. We end up terrified of and resisting the carpet itself. You can imagine how well one tiny section of thread of the entire carpet will fare when it resists the very carpet it is part of and one with. Not very well.
And this where suffering comes in. Suffering is the carpet’s way of pointing out the error of this extreme near-sightedness, this extremely narrow and limited view. That’s all it really is. It doesn’t matter what it appears to be to our limited view. Of course that will be distorted. We still can’t see the big picture. If instead of running away and resisting our suffering, we use it to point us back to the bigger picture, to expand our limited view, then we are using it correctly. The point of suffering is not to suffer. What would be the point of that? The point of suffering is to allow it to teach us, to open us, to expand our narrow and limited of view of life and what we are. When we feel we are only a tiny section of a single thread, we will inevitably suffer until we find out what we really are. Notice how the word “thread” and “threat” are only one letter apart. Interesting. What we really are is the whole carpet. The whole complete thing. And if we follow the pointers that suffering is always giving us, we will discover this too.
The carpet is made of threads. Threads like you. Threads like animals, trees and rocks. Threads like planets and solar systems. Threads like energy. Threads that are both form and formless. Nothing is left out of this carpet. And each thread both serves its individual purpose and is the whole entire thing at the same time. You cannot remove a single thread from this carpet and have it be the same carpet. This is why in reality nothing actually dies. But that may be a subject for another time.
Peter, how do I know I am ready to do my part, in other words: how can someone recognize I have become…?
Peace,
Selah
How can someone recognize you have become what? Life will always tell you when you are ready. Life will always tell you everything. Others may think many things about you. We live on one earth but there are 7 billion different worlds on this one earth. Every person sees a different world. And every person will also see you differently. When a pickpocket sees a Holy being, all he sees are his pockets. It doesn’t matter how awake you are, still people will see you through their own filters. There is nothing you can do about that. Don’t pay it any mind. Just do your best always. If life wants you to be a spiritual teacher, then students will begin to show up. There is no explaining how this happens. It just does. And what you teach, you also don’t know. It just spontaneously emerges from your mouth according to what is needed in the moment. You learn as much from it as the students do. The teacher is just the permanent student, always learning in every moment. If anything the teacher considers her or himself lower than the students. Some students think they know something. The true teach knows he knows nothing.
Let life guide everything. It always has. When we begin to awaken this becomes very clear. We never had any control. There was no I, me, mine to have control.
You actually always have two choices in how suffering awakens you.
1. Through sheer intensity which will increase until you finally get the message. This is much like an alcoholic hitting rock bottom. Not very pleasant but effective.
2. You can learn to see the message that suffering has always been giving you. You will still experience suffering. You are still in a dream and suffering is the nature of the dream. But it doesn’t have to be as extreme, intense and overwhelming as the first choice of ignoring and resisting it. You learn to open to it and stop resisting it before it literally breaks you and your resistance with it.
Suffering will either drag you kicking and screaming into awakening or you can stop resisting and go peacefully. Either way it will end up greatly to your benefit. It’s really just a matter of how you go.
Hi Peter,
Suffering seems to have dropped away here, so it doesn’t really feel like awakening is a How?, but rather a When? Here, it feels like awakening is intellectually known. What is not here known is a direct, immediate perception of the Oneness of reality. In other words, Now feels like a When? Comments?
Yes, Karen, when is much better than how. So you feel that the how is already working, already answering this question without you doing anything. How is happening. When the other shoe drops is now the question. I can feel it working but when is it going to be done? It has its own perfect timeline. Maybe you can also feel this. Something in you already knows when, just as it knows how. It is not of the intellect. It is an infinite, unlimited knowing. And I think you may be beginning to sense this. If so, that is very good. Don’t worry about what Oneness is or what that experience is. That is none of our business. It is the Oneness that is guiding you to it, to your Self. When when becomes now, you will know. But trust that it is all working perfectly, absolutely perfectly. It is.
I am very happy to read your words.
Peter, your reply is perfect and helps.
Great love,
karen
Suffering is actually life’s generous and intelligent way of bringing eyesight to the blind. You won’t understand this until you wake up. You will continue fearing it and resisting it. That’s exactly how you remain asleep. But when you learn to open to it or the sheer intensity of it opens you up in a way you can no longer resist or defend against, you will see the enormous gift in what you had been naturally and foolishly resisting all your life.