Om

Possibly the best words ever written were written in Russian: "...for all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world."
-Father Zosima, from [I]The Brothers Karamazov[/I].

All is connected, this is an idea from Buddhism and also Hinduism. In Buddhism all is seen as interconnected. Nothing has an separate existence. I don't have an existence separate from the world, or from the universe. Without the universe, I am nothing. And therefore; I am nothing, merely a reflection of the universe.

Every living being is of this same nature. Awakening is realizing this - not intellectually assenting, but realizing on all levels. This is what is called self-realization, what is called knowing the self. It is beyond ordinary experience.

My Self is something I usually do not see. It requires perfection to see, therefore I see only its shadows. But it is what is real, the rest of this is a shadow, and no more real than the shadows from Plato's cave.

So what am I? I am a reflection of the universe. I am connected to all in the universe. I do not have an existence separate from the universe. I am part of the universe, but actually, I am not even that. I am merely a reflection, merely an observer, merely a witness. But to know my Self is to know that I am the universe. I am nothing, and I am all.

This is what I must always strive for. Peace beyond peace. Peace beyond everything, beyond all.

Duality is an illusion. Duality implies separateness, and incompleteness, and this is illusion, or rather, ignorance. If I know my nature, then I am at the state the Buddhists call Buddha-nature, Awakened. To know my self is to know the infinite. I have no self other than the infinite source. Nothing exists except for the Self. The rest is smoke and mirrors, shadows, samsara, maya, illusion (ignorance).

It doesn't matter whether I am powerful, rich, strong, poor, weak, intelligent, ignorant, saintly, poor in spirit; if I am a demigod or a worm, I am still part of the infinite. All are links in the chain, even a worm is a link in the chain.

Part of the infinite means my self, whether I am a bird or a human or a fish or a worm, that my Self is the same, the Infinite source and center of all. All come from the same Infinite. The difference between beings is a difference in degree of expression, not of kind. Part of the infinite means that this world, the entire world which apparently exists, the entire material universe, all comes from the spiritual source. All has the infinite as its center.

Life is a play, but we have forgotten who we are. We have gone so far from our source. In ordinary experience we feel separated from our source, we feel separate from God. God is our source. The whole universe is within God, and yet God is within us, our center, source and Self.

There is no "must." There is no "you must find God." Apparently, we can continue this forever. But in ordinary experience, or in life lived for sense gratification, we will be missing out on a greater truth. We will be enforcing duality. We will never realize that we are within a dream of separateness. We will never know that our body is actually the whole universe. Ordinary experience is to Self-realization as dreaming is to being awake. The dream is not real.

No one is in control over us but ourselves. We are the creators of our lives, our destiny, our reality. We can wake up. We can know. In the dream, in the illusion, we think that we are this body. In truth, we are transcendent of space and time; we are a reflection, our body is the universe. All are equal in this, all are one, simply; the universe.