Lifting the Veil

And then all at once the veil is lifted! For the briefest of instants, the river comes into full view, teeming with life, shining silently in the mind's eye of wonder. Such feeling! Such grace! One wonders if if weren't possible to live all of life in this way. Is that the goal? Is such a thing possible? How could one communicate even the smallest breath of the great Togetherness, this joyful great Quiet, this old, old Restfulness? What is it that draws us away from ourselves in this strange reality, what is it that strives so handily to affix these "handcuffs on the soul," so that we might forget our true place, our real purpose? How can we allow this madness to continue?

Oh but how easily we assume all the well-known human standards. How quickly we become for one another the archetypes of “stranger,” “foreigner,” “perpetrator,” “deceiver”? Tell someone who doesn't know you that you appreciate them, and they think you insincere. Tell them they're a light and they think you're a stalker. Tell them you want to help them however you can and they steel themselves against change, digging in their heels, deaf to words of comfort and aid.

Life here seems very strange. Have we so easily forgotten the potency of love?

The odd-seeming thing, the strange paradox of our world, is that grace is ours by definition. We are all born with the ability to tap into the brilliance of real reality, into Jung's marvelous synchronicity; we are all granted un esprit indomptable from the start. And although such a profound feeling might seem far removed from our usual perceptions and modes of living life, it's really not. The undercurrent of blessed grace runs parallel within and without every aspect of our lives. It runs far deeper than our conscious minds can follow.

Gentle readers, I submit to you that this is the Real Deal. This is it, right here, immediately and presently in the room with you at this very moment. This is worth the contemplation. This is worth the scorn of the world. This is worth the price of admission of our human existence. This is worth living and dying for. There can be nothing real-er than this moment.

In fact there is something that has been called no-mind, a state of relaxed perception that allows the bandwidth of this perceived grace to be vastly broadened. This is done by removing the conscious mind's need to control the experience. Once our greedy little controller-brains are out of the picture, no longer squeezing reality through the too-narrow band of the ego, what's left is an uninhibited connection with Source, with the real Self which we ourselves stand as living mirrors for.

Therefore, as living mirrors of Divinity, I believe it is our job to be the heralds and the flag-bearers of the timeless phenomenon of the magnanimity of love—the true fabric that weaves our reality—by whose incredible largesse we are able to be at all. I think that's our chief and most important mission—the Prime Directive, if you will, of a life never more than a single realization away from the truth that we are here to honor something greater and nobler than our separate selves. The truth is that our selves are not separate, but fluid, and our lives continuously flow into and around one another, given momentum via the spark that we ultimately spring from, and so mirror. We are all representatives of this love, and of each other, just as much as ourselves. And as emissaries, then, we find that our lives are filled with opportunities to convey to one another the realness of our being, the beautiful design that bequeaths to us meaning, direction, and life-supporting purpose. It is there, always, to anyone who will see it for what it is. We are only, even at our darkest, only a single hairs-breadth of surrender away from this truth.

So it's always been, so always it shall be.

To remember this truth is like waking from a hazy dream into the warmth and excitement of a fresh new day, filled with promise. There you lay, at peace, and you're warm, you're safe, it's the start of the weekend—it's a three-day weekend!—it's the start of your vacation, and it's your birthday, and you're right where you want to be, surrounded by loved ones, free from care, free from pain and regret, having shed the weight of all worldly responsibility save the only one that actually matters: your cosmic charge to spread the message of love while you're alive and kicking around down here.

And then all at once the veil is lifted.