Wanted to Know the Truth.
For many years, I practiced meditation. With time the meditation became an obsession, and every moment of my life was devoted to it either directly (by sitting) or indirectly (through meditation in action). My sole purpose for living developed into a limitless desire to know the truth about life and death, to know my own immortal nature.During this time about two years ago, I was teaching yoga and meditation to a cancer patient, who was searching hard for answers. I desperately wanted to assuage his fears about dying and death, but did not know the truth myself. During this time I was forced to confront, head on, my own fears and ignorance. My bones would tremble, as I sat during meditation at the precipice of life and death, breath suspended for I don't know how long.
During these meditations there was this infinite space into which I could never venture. It was the "other side," and no matter how much I consciously let go into this space, I remained separate from it.
Then one day sitting on my couch at home, I began to settle in for a few quiet moments. When from out of nowhere, the infinite space that had always remained on the "other side," became the only reality I was aware of. It was like I was, prior to that, water trapped in a container, and then the container suddenly shattered and I was released into an infinite ocean, no longer able to distinguish myself from eternity, from God. No thoughts were possible, because there was no-one to have those thoughts, I was nothing, I was everything, I was what the words "unconditional love" point to. This was what I had been searching for all those years, and it was nothing like I imagined it would be. It was much, much more beautiful.
Then a little while later (probably a few seconds) and just as suddenly, I was returned to normal consciousness, where the "I" came back, and I was just sitting on the couch wonderstruck. Everything around me was vaguely transparent and aglow, present as a reminder of the transient and illusory nature of the things of the world.
(The verbiage I am about to be guilty of is just my mind's way of trying to comprehend what was revealed. I have found out since that the mind is an utterly inadequate instrument for the task of describing such things, and it is good that it is so, for it confirms that God/Truth, is not confined to any one belief).
I had realized that I am not a conscious being walking this earth, instead I am conscious being itself, perfect and complete just as it is.
The experience of being a body and mind separate from all other existence was seen to be some form of divine inebriation designed to allow the show we call life to go on. If consciousness was not focused down into and through the individual, then life as we know it simply could not function. As someone before me has said, if we didn't have names and addresses, there would be nowhere to send the mail.
I have been reading a lot of people's wonderful accounts about their life-changing NDE's and OBE's. When a person leaves their body and sees that it is a bag of bones, and not in any way who they really are, the potential for fearless living is great. Through meditation and the grace of the divine I have seen that these bodies we lug around are no more us than a mote of dust on a distant planet. The only thing left to fear is fear itself, and our Real Selves are entirely free from all fear.
I have found that I have completely given up trying to understand this grand mystery, instead, I see that I am simply living the mystery, living the knowledge, living the love, as in fact we all are. I want to say that it is possible to experience every moment as a confirmation of one's inherently free nature. And, truely speaking, since that moment on the couch, I find it impossible to experience anything other than God, warts and all.
Ultimately I have no idea why I am sitting here writing this today. But here I am, and there you are. May we meet in infinite silence, and sing together our journey as we travel this incarnation of eternity called life.
Love and warm-fuzzies
Christian.
