When I Awoke

When I awoke this morning, before the mind of yesterday returned, I floated for a moment in eternity. It was so obvious that the truth about the universe had been "educated" out of me and replaced by a false story of separateness, distance, competition, struggle; a story drilled in at an early age and re-confirmed by religion, politics, pharmaceutical and medical dogma.

But the truth is not this story at all. Truth is the boundless radiance of my silent Heart, the Anahata center, which in Sanskrit means "the unstruck sound." This truth is my immediate non-conceptual sensation, before I even begin to think: the total Self-perception of this body. And if this truth must to be spoken, it might be described or pointed to like this...

'Let go of your thoughts, regrets about what has been, anxieties about what might be: simply feel their underlying sensation in your brain. Even a powerful memory, an event you believe really happened in some place you call "the past," actually happens in the present moment, as a flicker of light leaping an axon into the dendrite of a neighboring cell. The mental image created by this flare is secondary, like smoke.

'Let awareness fall back into neurological fire. Don't worry; you won't lose your mind. Your mind will be nourished at its root. Then, when you need to think, your thinking will be useful and clear.

'Feel the subtle energy of your nervous system, not only in the brain but throughout the whole environment of your physiology. Share your consciousness with microbes, with ancient wiggling hieroglyphs of DNA. Become a single sensory field permeated by awareness, without words, labels, or thoughts.

'Now see if you can feel the "edges" of this awakened sensuality. Does your flesh have any borders? Does your body have an outline?

'Feel the air around your skin. Bathe in the radiance, the warmth of other living creatures. Do they have edges? Where does your territory end and their bodies begin? Sense the forest, the mountains, the ocean, the clouds, as extensions of your pelt.

'Now be mindful of space itself, not as an impersonal abyss of frightening distance, but the intimacy of your own furry attention. Space is awake, fibrous and soft as cotton. And space is awareness itself...

'The stars are very near you. Galaxies are dancing, whirling inside you, as the luminescence of your own blood cells. Separateness is not illusion, but it is merely appearance, a play. Just for a moment, give up the falsehood you were taught in school: the myth of distance. Let go of that story, the story about the universe as an enormous machine far beyond your ken, in whose steely gears you are an infinitesimally lonely spark, weighted by chill inanimate absence. This is the lie.

'Dare to soak in the Glory you actually are. You are not merely made of star-stuff: you scatter suns with each conscious breath. Transcendence is mutual causation. You generate a berry in the void. The berry generates your seeing of it. Participate in the creation of all that you behold. And ever remember what the Vedas declared before writing was invented, when language was all humming: "Yatha drishti, tatha shrishti: as you are, so your world appears."

'Macrocosm and microcosm simultaneously interact and mutually depend. Your body the soul of the universe. A raindrop, earth trembles. There are no abstractions.

'Be intimate with all sentient beings, they are your nerves, whether they dwell on earth, on other star systems, in the realm of the ancestors, or the hungry ghosts. Wash them with each heartbeat. Enjoy the inestimable honor of healing them with every breath. This is the truth.

'Our sun is very active right now. But that is just a shadow of the radiance shining from the black hole at the center of our galaxy, which is precisely the same black hole that centers every proton of your body. Therefore, let solar flares and inter-galactic rays penetrate your physiology. Receive them as celestial caresses, without pushing back. Embrace them as pure energy without labels. Don't freak out when your vibrations throttle up, and you feel disoriented, with every manner of throbbing, vertigo, palpitation, and weirdness. Most of this is caused by your resistance. Allow it all in the knowledge that the cosmos wants to transform your chromosomes, and evolve your soul into the gentle munching kindness of a wingéd gorilla.’

Illustration from 'Grandfather Twilight' by Barbara Berger