Self-realization is complete and utter fulfillment. It is the end of all suffering and the perception of separation. It is also the conscious beginning of deep, sacred peace and realizing the radiant love that you already are.
However, this is far more than a personal affair. As the consciousness transforms, that is, as the altered states of consciousness fall away, so does the life situation and the world transform. With Self-realization, an enduring world peace is a true possibility.
Everything conceived by the ego is separate and dual in nature. It experiences that it is split from the world and apart from the divine. The psychological self then suffers the alienation of the daytime dream of conceptual reality, its time and negativity.
It creates the delusion of a pain gap between the body’s limitation and the magnificent Heart that we genuinely are. The illusion of division then unconsciously operates in daily living. This subject-object relationship (ego vs. everyone else) is the source of all loneliness, anger, lack, desire, greed, fear, exploitation, guilt, shame, manipulation, control, anxiety, worry and sorrow.
Without an ego-subject, there can be no divided objects and separation is plainly unattainable. This is not to say that we do not honor our diversity. In fact, when we are no longer inhibited by the ego, innate creativity, natural abilities and uniqueness thrive.
We are a single symphony of wise love ... and beyond experience, infinitely more. This wondrous shift is one of identity only; from a suffering ego that is limited to a finite body ... to joyful pure being, whether with form or without.
Even conceptually, we can understand that nothing could be separate from that which is called totality. Totality is simply whole. By analogy, when we cut a piece of pumpkin pie for dessert, we do not claim that it is other than pie. Likewise, who we are is diversified, yet whole.
You have the opportunity to investigate the truth for yourself. Have you been curious enough to look directly and deeply within? Who are you really at the core? There is a brilliance already shining within you that is profoundly deeper than the body and its surface reality. You have only to realize it by direct looking and inquiring within.
This does not require the mind’s philosophical analysis. It only compels you to become conscious of what is within right now. When we cherish aloneness and quietude for this deeper contemplation, we realize that we are the love that we have been seeking in every other.
Suffering is not in the world. It is in the pain gap of separation within you and then projected by the divided mind as the painful world. One could say that it is superimposed much like a movie on a cinema screen. Whereas, free of the pain gap, we have a far more enjoyable movie! Just wait and see. Indeed, a life that is free of suffering is a true possibility for all being.
The fragmented "me” thinks that it is IN the mental space of time that we label physical experiencing. In truth, time and space are appearing within you. To confirm this, simply notice that everywhere you are, it is always here and now. If it was reversed … if you were limited to time and space … and if your identity was the body only, this could not be so. Every time and place would be something other than here and now. You are the permanent factor that is not confined to the body’s time and place.
In the divided world of duality within time, the ego experiences that it is subject to the push and pull of the opposing forces that are in constant resistance with one another. Every experience is threatened by its opposite. The ego constantly vacillates between pleasure-pain, happy-sad, relative peace-conflict, relative love-hate, etc. It has virtually no conscious stability. In fact these opposites depend upon one another for their definitive existence. For instance, we define happiness as a lack of sadness and sadness as a lack of happiness.
There is a continuum between these opposites along which there are many varying degrees. The ego defines its placement on the continuum, through the absence of the other … and only time separates them. First, the ego cycles to being relatively happy and after certain duration, it cycles to being relatively sad, which in turn will once again cycle to being relatively happy.
In fact, within time, constant sadness is just as unattainable as stable happiness; whereas joy is inherent in both and beyond the opposites. For the ego, pleasure cannot exist without pain. Relative love cannot prevail without hatred. As a time traveler, the ego's time-space-body limitation is always subject to both.
Non-duality is transcendental and its world is free of the cycling of time. Therefore, the opposites, such as relative love-hatred or relative peace-conflict, disappear into oneness and the darkness cannot survive the love of the merger. We are stunned by a brilliant stillness that is preeminent, sublime and unrivaled.
Steadfast joy is natural to the human being. As the non-dual reality, true experience is not in opposition to any other. Therefore, competition, aggression, envy, greed and sexual obsession are effortlessly banished. My point is that you are needlessly suffering and that the transformative power lies within you.
First, the invitation is to realize time freedom. In this attentive openness, we are free of the time required for the vacillating cycles. The opposites cannot take flight and are transcended. Since the concept of “me” requires time, we are also free of the pain gap and its delusion of separation.
The opposites are part and parcel of the idea of “me,” its never-ending desires and fears, and its need based insecurity. When the concept of “I” profoundly surrenders, both relative love and hatred are extinguished by unconditional love. We move beyond the relative peace that inevitably cycles to war and realize the absolute peace that is beyond all understanding. This transforms so called human experience into an appearance within an all-pervading field of innocence and equanimity. One could say that we regain virginal sight.
In the beginning, we practice being present to this moment; the only entry point to the "inner body." In this, we become aware of what it feels like to actually be fully and completely in our body, rather than ruminating in our head. Our senses come alive and we become aware of our effortless breathing. We realize our aliveness.
Then attention begins shifting to simply "I am" rather than “I am this or that.” Here, we are in alignment with the infinite pure being that is the open door to a "new" reality. In truth, you are already the infinite and intelligent power that is the totality.
The timeless Now, or what Ramana Maharshi called the Forever Now and Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, is beyond the appearance of the present moment. The timeless Now is free of content altogether and is the space within which the present moment is appearing. It is beyond the concept of "you," your idea of separation and the vacillating cycles that oppose one another ... and that allow the perception of negativity to persist.
If you could realize that you are radiant love and that this realization is the key to world transformation, would you hesitate and wait? Would it not be worth it to at least look and consider the Heart of the matter?
