07/23/2022
The mind thrives on discrimination, meaning that it is continuously separating and distinguishing one thing from another. It sees a world of forms, and names them, "This is a tree, that is my phone, there is my coffee, that is my neighbor." Caught up in all these distinctions, our mind misses the one life that is behind it all and is all. All people, all living things, everything is an expression of one thing, and that one thing can't be properly named because it is beyond all thoughts, names and distinctions that the mind is capable of conceiving.
The path of peace is the awareness of what lies behind, in and through all things. The mind wants to identify and name it like it does everything else, but it cannot be identified and named like a tree or your phone. It has an entirely different set of properties or no properties at all that your mind can grasp. We often consciously connect with it through a deep feeling, awareness, or tacit understanding that opens up within us. There are times when something might trigger this awareness, and there are other times when it simply becomes present to us because it is always there.
We find in the moment that this awareness itself is enough. Over time this awareness shifts our relationship to the world beyond an existence immersed in forms, to a life that is attuned with that which cannot be named and has no form. A burden is lifted and there is a lightheartedness, and a deep abiding sense of well-being wells up within you.
Let the eyes of your heart see that which cannot be named but is behind all, through all, and is all. See beyond the illusion of separateness into the intricate web of life in which all things are expressions of a single Whole. You can call this web God, the Tao, the Great Spirit, the Infinite Mystery, Mother or Father or call it nothing more other than Life itself, but it can be known only as belonging and love.
Center for Non-Religious Spirituality
- Jim Palmer