The One Most Profound Thing About Life We Were Never Told
There’s something profound about life we were never told. It’s absurd nobody mentioned it at school or later on. Most people are born, go through life, and die not even suspecting about it, absorbed in the movie of the phenomenal world — almost like in a dream. It may be the single most important revelation about life and they miss it completely. Such a pity!
And the biggest irony lies in the fact it is there all the time — an intrinsic part of life. It is within them. They don’t have to look for it anywhere else or do anything — they are ‘It’ already. And yet they go through life never knowing it, in a hurry, automatically, as if hypnotized by a game. Does this mean their life is incomplete or even wasted? Well, does it matter? Does it matter if you fall asleep dreaming a beautiful dream unwilling to wake up again?
Because this is what happens to most people. They dream a dream with ups and downs, highs and lows, but usually a pleasant one. And always captivating and engaging. It is only when the dream becomes a terrible nightmare, unbearable and terrifying, that the stimulus to awaken may arise in them. In that sense, if the dream is entertaining, they may spend their life dreaming; if it’s bad — they will wake up and realize it was all just a dream. Surprised by the fact they were so possessed by it, as deep down they’ve known they could wake up at any time. A sense of relief and gratitude may come. They are now awake, liberated from the dream.
But what am I talking about? What are these analogies of dreams and revelations all about?
Well, it’s both quite simple and not so much. Don’t focus on the conceptual meaning itself, but rather see if you can attend to the hidden truth behind the words you read.
In a nutshell: we are not separate from life. Yes, we have an external form — bodies and minds — but we wrongly believe we also have a life we may lose one day. The profound thing most people miss is that we ARE life itself.
For thousands of years philosophers, spiritual teachers, and religions have been trying to point to this gross omission most people are prone to. “Know Thyself” reads a sign at the entrance of the Apollo Temple in Greece. And we believe we indeed know who we are — identifying only with our external form — personality, mind, body, looks. What we miss and what “Know Thyself” points to is that there is more to us — to our nature and identity. Because our nature and identity are two-fold.
Don’t try to work out that which follows mentally. Don’t confine it to the mind, but rather experience it on a deeper level. You cannot grasp the nature of honey if you have never smelled or tasted it, can you? If you have never dipped a finger into its rich texture.
“Know Thyself” invites us to go deeper into our experience of existence and discover an underlying dimension of presence, vast stillness, infinite spaciousness, and radiant being-ness: our innermost essential nature, connected with the Source of life itself.
On a more fundamental level, we aren’t individual entities separate from the surrounding universe. We came out of it and are therefore an intrinsic part of it. Its cosmic quality of infinite vastness and spacious nothingness is intrinsic to our nature, too. And the most astounding and amazing fact is that we are able to realize it and know it from direct experience — with our whole Being. Then, on the surface, things continue to happen — everyday “noise,” events, people, thoughts, plans, errands. On a deeper level, we transcend all that and are rooted in inner peace and stillness. We feel whole and complete already — one with everything. Not needing this or that to be other than what they are right now. We align ourselves with the universal flow, the rhythm of life. It doesn’t feel like we are doing it ourselves, it just flows through us. We don’t need to direct it, control it, or resist it, but rather just to surrender to it, allow it, trust it.
Life then becomes more alive, more joyful, infused with a different quality. Those same events, situations, people from the past no longer seem vitally important, nor they seem stressful anymore. They cannot trigger us or touch us at our core anymore. We are rooted in a dimension of indestructible and limitless presence. The small and burdensome, worried personality opens up completely, giving way to something more powerful to operate through it. A universal intelligence, a stream of consciousness, which has been there all along, takes over. Never having been separate from us, it rejoices in the beauty of the rediscovered Unity and Oneness.
When we are connected to this deeper dimension of consciousness, of presence, our sense of identity shifts. We no longer derive the sense of “I” from the way we look, what we possess, mind-made stories, perspectives, problems, grudges, past. The impermanence and transience of these things show through, and they lose their grip on us. Our identity then flows primarily from a connectedness with source. From a solid, timeless, everlasting light of presence… Our eternal, most essential nature. So I invite you to “Know Thyself” and experience living from limitless freedom and beauty!
