"I am the LORD; I do not change" - Malachi 3:6
One does not need to be an astute philosopher to recognize that the nature of life is in constant flux. Change and the speed at which it manifests in our world is accelerating. This is evident in every part of the human experience. Technological advances and instant communication are the drivers of the ubiquity of change across the landscape of our lives.
However adept we may be in adapting to change, its ever-increasing pace feels oppositional to our innate longing for peace and happiness. While we may assume a stationary posture to contemplate and meditate on inner stillness, the winds of change will swirl about us, and the world of form continues to shift beneath us.
Being fascinated by technology and drawn to keep up with the latest breakthroughs puts me in a bit of tension with a spiritual pull that draws me inward to embrace a timeless inner existence. While I intend to prioritize time spent in quiet, the mind with its aversion to stillness and its addiction to movement and acquisition runs an interference pattern in the background much of the time. Because most of my life I have subscribed to the belief that the source of my well-being would be found in external events, circumstances, and other people, it takes a level of discipline to train attention to stay “home” instead of wandering off.
What I have found is the more time I spend in quiet contemplation the more confirmation I receive that what I am truly seeking, i.e., peace and happiness, is more abundant in the still and spacious purview of my inner world. Not only is it more available, it is not conditional. That is, as soon as I get in touch with my true essence, pure consciousness, the sense of well-being is immediate. There is no waiting, no conditions that first be satisfied, no preexistent dependent cause. The sense of spaciousness and peacefulness is unconditional and always abiding. It is indeed the veritable ever-present amidst the ever-changing.
For years I read about this realm of inner peace, and I had tried to access it in the practice of quiet contemplation and meditation, however, it seemed to elude me. I was looking for “something,” that is, some objective experience. In this approach, I was stuck in dualistic thinking, seeking a nondual reality. I, a seeking subject, was attempting to perceive or achieve a peaceful state of mind or heart. The fallacy was in what I was taking myself to be in this search; a separate person wanting to find or become something that would bring me the peace and well-being I yearned for. The frustration of so many failed attempts at this realization was crazy making and I began to feel spiritually inept. Can you relate to this self-abasing conclusion from your own frustrated awakening efforts? If you still feel stuck in this practice, take heart, for there is a way out and it's not nearly as esoteric and unreachable as one's history of unsuccessful efforts would suggest.
The key to beholding this deeper truth of being hinged on identifying the underlying mistake in how its absence was perceived. Like Dorothy Vale's revelation at the end of her search, I too, had it all along. And so have you. It’s perhaps the most surprising paradox of all. A bad cosmic joke, with a great punchline! What we’ve been looking for, is what’s been looking. In other words, the subject is the object. Or to frame this conclusion in titular fashion, what is the never-changing is the reality of being amidst the ever-changing. And to arrive at this conclusion experientially, sans any leaps of faith, we need only look closely at what we have taken ourselves to be and apply the never changing test. It’s a process of neti-neti (not this, not that). Looking at ourselves, and what we have assumed we are, we find all the aspects of the person to be ephemeral. The body changes (oh, don’t we know this one?), and the mind, with its thoughts and feelings, concepts, and beliefs certainly change (sometimes in an instant) perceptions, sensations, and memories are all subject to shifts and changes. We can change our names, our careers, even our gender. So, what remains? What of you and I remain despite the maelstrom of change that is the inconstant milieu of the personal self? What remains is the light of knowing itself. It is consciousness or pure awareness. The knowing by which all these changes are observed without itself being changed, altered, or affected in any way. It is ground zero, it is the alpha and the omega of you and me. It was not born; it does not die. It neither comes nor goes. It is always in the background of experience as the light of knowing. Jesus said you are this light along with him. It is the “single eye” which spares us from the suffering view of duality. Like the screen upon which the movie appears, it is unaffected by the drama that plays upon it, and when the movie changes, the screen remains completely intact as itself; whole, complete, and equanimous.
Knowing this we no longer need to cling to life being a certain way; even welcoming change, as it will happen despite our preferences. We remain anchored in the knowing of the changeless reality of the Self that God created. Peace is here; a quiet happiness pervades life.
Namaste,
Rev Larry
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