I sometimes give myself little rewards here and there throughout the day as gifts to myself. But the real gift is something else. The real gift is just being here, and it's available each moment.
Imagine that you were going to die tomorrow. Imagine that you really were going to. After today, you'd be no more. This would be your last day on earth.
Suppose you really knew that? How would you act? How would you behave? How would you feel about the world?
Suddenly the magic of the world would appear, as we contemplate leaving it. We would watch the leaves blow in the wind, knowing that we would never see them again.
We'd look in people's faces, knowing that we would never see them again. Every person, every animal, every situation that we encountered would take on a precious quality given by knowing we would never be able to experience them again.
Of course there are philosophies that postulate that we go on existing somehow after death, that we go to heaven or reincarnate. But that presupposes some sort of "personal" self or soul or spirit, which is a fiction in the first place.
There's no such thing as a personal self, because everything is the infinite—all one thing, one organism, one energy. It's completely one; there's nothing about the "I" that actually exists separately. It's all fiction; there's only the One.
Suppose, then, that when we die we simply disappear back into the infinite. This is no great calamity, since we were always the infinite anyway, and so we're simply disappearing back into ourself. Yet this impersonal conjunction of vibrations, this state of being that we call "you" or "me" will never be here again in quite the same way.
Knowing this, we see the world differently. The fragility of it all, the mortality of it all, lends all of it a preciousness that makes even the "ugly" beautiful.
The same effect is created when we're fully present to what is—without judging it, condemning it or clutching on to it. When we look at our sensations, our feelings, our thoughts, our impressions, our reactions, without gloming on to any of them, but just being here with them, they take on a new quality.
When we're really here, not lost in our thoughts and words and opinions and feelings, but present to all things internal and external without picking them up, then we're available to the moment without resistance. Then this very moment takes on a transcendent quality. It's heaven, buried within the ordinary.
Heaven is here and now, but buried in the mundane, the difficult, the monotonous, the rejected.
When we're really present to this moment, we can't help but appreciate it. After awhile, we come to love the infinite—that is, ourselves—everywhere. The blue sky, the eyes of our child, the way our partner walks in the woods, even filling out the tax form.
Because we know that our lover—that is, ourselves—is greeting us everywhere. The roll of the waves, the smell of coffee, the delicate colors of the sunset as the sun plunges into the horizon. She/he/it/us/I is everywhere, with no exceptions.
Beyond all of our thoughts, our worst "enemy" becomes just someone acting in delusion, thinking they exist separately. We're doing the same thing. Because we think we exist separately, we compete, we manipulate to try to get our way, all the while suffering secretly from the strain of trying to "move forward" or "progress" a personal self that doesn't exist.
When we realize the folly of our situation, we sometimes burst out laughing. It's a cosmic joke: We posit the existence of a separate self which then has to progress in some way, as if there was somewhere to go when we're already everything.
What happens then is we simply give up. We give up completely. There's nothing left.
In that surrender, listening arises. A deep listening which has no source and no end, arising by itself from nowhere. And in that listening, appreciation arises, preciousness arises.
And something else—action. Action arises by itself, without thought and without concern about where it's going, just appreciating the journey it's taking while "we" are here.
At first, this action arises as a feeling or voice: "Do this. Go there. Call them." When we listen, we hear this quiet knowing from nowhere.
How do we distinguish it from other thoughts or voices in our heads?
First, it's never critical. It never condemns anything or anybody. Everything and everybody is precious because it's here, because it's part of the one. If there's a criticalness or a rejection or condemnation, that's not it.
Second, it doesn't want anything. It's not trying to get anywhere because it's already everywhere, so it's never felt as a desire or urgency. It's always relaxed, knowing that all outcomes are simply meeting the beloved—that is, ourselves—in a different way.
Third, it's not trying to be secure, it's not trying to nail things down like the mind does. It's not against any of that, but it's just not coming from there.
Instead, it's coming from love and possibility. Just that. It comes from infinite love and infinite possibility.
When we "follow" that inner guide or voice, after awhile we notice that it's actually acting by itself—and always has been. The only question is whether we're going to condemn or bless what's happening, be in anxiety or observation about it.
So if the surface is in turmoil, good; whatever it is it's loved for what it is. If the sun is shining, good, we'll celebrate it. If it's raining, good, we'll celebrate it. If the flower of joy is blooming, good, we'll celebrate it. If the flower of sadness is blooming, good, we'll celebrate it.
Imagine brusing your teeth or washing the dishes. While you're here, you're going to do it countless times, again and again. We might as well enjoy these everyday things, because we'll be doing them over and over. But how will we do them? If we slow down and really focus on the bare sensation of them, they become something precious.
Suppose you could never wash another dish, ever again? How would you wash this dish now?
The you that doesn't exist will never exist in quite this way again. The infinite will never have the opportunity to appreciate itself in quite this way again.
When we're really present to washing the dishes, that's the mystery washing them. When we're really present to the flowers blooming, that's the ungraspable watching them bloom. When we listen to the sounds of the world or to the sound of our own hearts, that's the infinite listening... listening to itself.
—jim sloman, for 8/21/01
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