Just as a caterpillar doesn’t
know it can fly until it experiences its own metamorphosis, most human beings
are not sure of their Divinity. They doubt it, unless they are offered a moment
of grace where life is experienced in an entirely different way from the
habitual waking state reality. A distinct experience of a different dimension
often helps us confirm what we may have hoped for or suspected for the bigger
part of our lives: that there truly is more to us than what we see in the
mirror, or what the world around us is telling us.
Most everybody has had such a
moment at some point in their lives. It may have occurred during a breathtaking
instant in nature, while experiencing the ecstasy of being in love, at the
sight of a newborn baby or even during an accident, when time seems to stand
still: The common denominator of such an experience is that the sky seems to
open, the usual sensory perceptions appear as extremely heightened or even
suspended - and only infinite peace, beauty and stillness remain. Most of the
time these glimpses of a different reality are fleeting. They last for a short
moment and then we fall back into the habitual human perception of everyday
life.
Even though it may have been
just a glimpse, something inside gets transformed irrevocably. To touch the
space inside that is eternal and infinite leaves a mark in our consciousness.
We are reminded of who we truly are: A Divine Being living in a human form for
a time. Situations like these are Life’s gifts to help us remember our True
Nature and to inspire us to cultivate and live that knowledge.
The normal waking state however
doesn’t allow us to live the knowledge of our True Nature. The constant chatter
of our minds and the ongoing perception of things and forms are covering the
state of unchanging peace that is at the back of all our human experiences. If
we want to live a different dimension, we need to cultivate a different state
of being, a state that is not rooted in the activities of the mind.
That is what Meditation offers:
In simply closing our eyes, we enter a different dimension. We notice that the
chatter of the thoughts may still rise and fall like waves in the ocean - yet
the ocean itself, the infinite water, is not affected by the waves, movement or
objects moving in it. Ocean water remains ocean water, whether is is placid or
whether it is churned by a storm. In the same way, we notice that with eyes closed,
we are witnessing the coming and going of thoughts, but as the Watcher or
Knower, we are not affected by the thoughts or their movement. Once we realize
that we Are that Watcher, the thoughts become nothing more than innocuous flow
of movement. We notice that our True Identity as that Knower is free from the
thoughts and their content. Through practice, our identification shifts from
believing that we are the thoughts to knowing ourselves as the Knower, forever
Free and Blissful. Thus Meditation reveals that the Knower is infinite, pure
and never ever separate from its Divinity - it reminds the caterpillar in us
that we are, always have been and always will be Butterflies that fly free...
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