It's Not Magic

Are we talking about what is true, or what appears?  What appears to be? 

Should we talk about why the sky is blue, or ask - is it actually blue at all?

Should we ask why the ocean is blue, or go pull a bucket of seawater and find that it's not blue at all?

Should we continue to refer the sun as moving across the sky, or realize, remember that it's actually the earth which is moving and the sun is stationary.

Should we continue to look up on the world of things and only stay with the appearance of it?  If there is a rock or a tree, we are taking that form or appearance as the absolute existence, the independent thing, instead of realizing - REMEMBERING - that a tree or rock or cloud or anything we see is a pattern, a formation, an expression of something else.

So as we break this habit of taking appearance as absolute, we begin to trace back what that "thing" is after all - from what has it appeared, from what has it patterned?  We trace it through the molecule, the element, the atom, the quark, energy - at some point we lose the ability to trace any farther.

All we can say about it - in fact we find that no matter what "thing" it is that we're trying to trace back - we always come to that same ineffable source, that same "no-thing-ness" or emptiness or Intelligence - sometimes we call it Life.

All we can really say is - whatever it IS - it is THAT which exists - the eventual pattern, the tree, the rock, the cloud, the thought - whatever it is that eventually appears or forms - is never something new, never something newly created that is apart FROM that source, apart FROM that essence, whatever it IS.

So the "existence" of the tree or rock or thought is not really an existence but a coming and going, an appearing and dissolving, a patterning OF that ESSENCE, THAT which IS - that which is the reality, that which exists alone - the tree or rock or cloud or thought is just an expression of THAT - is it not?

Therefore we come to the conclusion, really the conviction that anything we might call the "world", anything we might call "experience" is THAT essence forming or patterning or expressing - we ultimately cannot find anything which stands outside of this reality - including this body, this mind, this idea of what I Am.

Maybe unexpectedly, being dumbstruck on some quiet evening - it dawns that this essence, this LIFE or Intelligence, THAT which IS - I MUST BE THAT!  What else could I be?  What is it that is presently aware of this world, this appearance, this "patterning" which includes the body and mind?

THAT which is presently the knower of this IS THAT essence, that Life.  Therefore it isn't ME who knows the world as a separate entity but Life which knows itself through this patterning.  Life has, through this mechanism we call "Consciousness", the capability of knowing itself, yes? 

Vedanta says - Aham Brahmasmi - I am Brahman.  I am that which IS, that existence which is the source of all that appears and the knower of that appearance.  Shankara said - ultimately the Self and Brahman are identical.  THAT which you call ME, "I" - that Self you know so well, that Self which is Self-Evident - that Self is not the small self of ME, the small self of the independent existence but THAT Brahman itself, Life itself, Intelligence.

We didn't need to get anything, go anywhere - it was just realized to already be SO.  You are that whole reality, that essence, that source.  The idea of being something separate, independent, finite - falls away as false naturally - what remains is the certainty that you are the whole itself.

It's not magic.  It's not spiritual.  It's just a mistaken identity with a false idea.  The falling away of that idea is called "Self-Realization".