The journey of life passes through many stages. To have a quick view of this journey we can read biographies, that way we can go through someone’s life in a couple of days. This should give us an idea of how quickly time passes, what it means to understand the passage of time. They say enlightenment can occur in an instant, something we should always remember, something we should keep as a point of reference, a focus we should not lose. Our hope lies in that, it is our reason for existence, our sanctuary from the chaos, the torture and anxiety of this world.
We should look at that moment in time when enlightenment occurs, a moment which always exists, which is always the same moment. The difference from moment to moment is merely our misunderstanding of time, time which has been described as the skin of illusion. Time allows us to organize illusion, to give illusion some historical reference or progression which reinforces the nature of illusion. That moment of enlightenment does occur, but it occurs outside all this history, outside of time; it is the moment we break free of history and illusion, we break free of our biography, existence in this world. We change worlds, we change roles, we pass through illusion into reality.
Now God has sent many prophets and enlightened beings, many teachers to show us what this is like. My experience with one such teacher has shown me the positive understanding of these beings, an understanding they use to take others from wherever they are to a place closer to reality. When we are caught by the torpor of this existence and lose our focus on the possibility of enlightenment, the world surrounds us and beats us down.
What beats us down is the attempt to find some reality in this world, something we cannot do. The myth of Sisyphus is everyone’s life, it is not a myth, it is what the world is: we keep trying to accomplish things that cannot be accomplished. Reality does not exist in the context of the world. We keep trying to create institutions which are immortal, situations which are immortal, we keep trying to create all this in a place which is mortal. We do all this in the mortal world expecting to create something immortal.
The legal system has created institutions like corporations, limited liability companies which do not expire, which are theoretically immortal. There is an assumption they can exist forever, they do not go through the normal testamentary dispositions a human life goes through, and they are not subject to the laws of human life because they have been created with a version of immortality. When we look at the world, we treat these institutions as if they had some kind of immortality. Nevertheless we see that things do break down, great nations do fall, civilizations crumble, things which peak fall to the ground in time. Something like our exploding DNA which brings us to the end of our life also exists in everything else in the world.
As long as we exist in this worldly realm we are subject to all the things the world is subject to, volcanoes, tornadoes, earthquakes, typhoons, massive destruction, eruptions. If we study the sun we learn there are periods of extraordinary volatility. When intense sunspots occur they affect our weather, our transmission signals and everything on earth. We learn that this volatile ball which heats us will explode one day because it also exists in the temporary, just as everything in the world does.
Faced with the temporary nature of things, some philosophers dealing with the critical nature of our existence, looking for a way out, concluded that man invented God to defer insanity. Understand that man did not invent God, it was God who created man. Every enlightened teacher and the communities which coalesce around their presence are the proof of that.
Such teachers alter lifestyles, they alter focus, the way we look at things, our attitudes, our ability to understand their existence alters the way we live our life, it alters the purpose of our existence, our expectations, the way we think, it alters who we are. The opportunity we have exists within this alteration; it is the work accompanying the alteration which makes truth available.
If this alteration does not occur, if this understanding does not develop we might become cynical, skeptical, with incoherent values, we might not have the ability to differentiate right from wrong. Then there is only the kind of existence ruled by thoughts such as if it feels good, do it. The arrogance which goes with this insists that the products of our minds are the gods of the world—whatever it is we can think of, we are entitled to do. This is called the morality of individual choice, a morality drawing us deeper and deeper into illusion.
In reality, man does not make the law, God makes our law. Unless we understand that true law exists within His divine nature we cannot find our way; if we lose His divine law we cannot find our way. Teachers are sent to the world to show us examples of divine law, of acquiescence to it in action. Interaction with divine law brings us to an understanding of the possible for our own state, for our own being. As we compare the gratification of the world with the gratification from acquiescence to divine understanding, we begin to know what is possible in each world. Once we acquiesce to divinity and taste it, we know there is no greater taste.
If we do not slow down long enough to taste it, if we are so overwhelmed by the magnetism and hypnotism of the world, if we are so pulled and turned around by the deceptions of illusion we never learn what acquiescence to divinity can do. If we believe our own ability to comprehend and resolve things is so great that we do not accept the divine, we will never know this taste. If we never know this taste we never know the possibility of our true nature, we never understand our birthright, understand who we can become, understand what is intended for us, we never know the reason for our creation and existence.
If we do not accept the divine our life is filled with the torture of the world, it can become a life of rage and anger as we experience everything working against our freedom, everything our sense of freedom objects to. The world does try to bite us or beat us, if we choose to live there that is the life we have. To escape, we have to remove ourself from the plague of the world and move into reality. There is a side door to the right of our stage where we can get out, an exit we have to take while we still function on stage. If we do not take that exit we must face the hurricanes and tornadoes, the volcanoes, and we are hurled in every direction.
May God help us understand the true nature of our existence, may we make the choices which take us to Him, accepting His divinity, His essence.
