When a person manages to look beyond their familiar perception of themselves and the world, a reality may open to them in which all distinctions seem to dissolve.
No here or there, no before or after, no movement leading anywhere. And yet That is not simply Nothing.
In such a vision or experience, the certainty may arise that everything is one and the same being, which neither begins here nor ends there, but permeates everything.
But to say that this being has always existed and always is—might that, under certain circumstances, seem evident to the person experiencing it?
Yet how easily we can be dazzled by such a moment! The immediacy of an insight can be so overwhelming that we barely distinguish between what actually revealed itself and what has been inferred from it.
It is possible to recognise that it is the same being in every direction, and even that there are no directions separate from one another.
But does that allow us to bear witness to what was before this insight?
Looking into the past from the present is not the same as knowing the past itself.
Perhaps this is precisely where a misunderstanding runs through many philosophical and mystical explanations.
The experience of the timeless becomes a claim about eternity.
Yet eternal, in this context, does not necessarily mean lasting for an infinite length of time.
Eternal is simply a name for timeless.
When a person manages to look into this One, this spaciousness, this prevailing non-existence, they themselves have become the factor of time, permeated by the same Self. Consciousness experiences its own creation and passing away without any movement taking place within it.
An eternal vision. But eternal only because time no longer has any meaning within it.
Now we might ask who perceives the arising and passing of consciousness. Who remains when consciousness passes away? Is it God? The true Self? An all-encompassing consciousness?
Such answers are quickly found. And perhaps that is precisely why they deserve particular care.
The words of Jesus come to mind: “My kingdom is not of this world.”
We can explore what he meant. But his words need not serve to explain something that eludes our explanation.
I know only this: when It is, I am not. Not here, not there, not nowhere.
I return as I and know of it. But when it is, I am not.
There is a peculiar contradiction here. The “I” can speak of it afterwards, but cannot testify to having been present as “I” while it was happening. And yet something remains that cannot simply be dismissed as imagination.
Does the return to consciousness first bring the memory into being? Does it give meaning to what was experienced, or is something entirely different happening here …?
The real consequence of such an insight might lie in attributing no more to it than it itself allows us to recognise.
But what if a person were able not only to look into this One, but to be this One themselves? Not for a moment, not within an experience, nor for a certain length of time, but as this very Self.
Then the person no longer experiences their true Self, but is it. Their true nature is no longer the object of an insight. It is their own being.
There is neither time nor timelessness. Space, the body and all appearances are no longer something that stands apart from a Self. Everything is this one Self, in which no separation, no boundary, no beginning, no direction and no end can be discerned. No “I” shares in the experience. The Self is itself the one experiencing.
If a person has entered this divine kingdom, then, as a human being, they have become being and, as an “I”, have ceased to be.
And if this is not merely a passing experience, but being that has irrevocably become aware of itself, then all dreaming, all suffering and all doubts about their true nature are uprooted. Not because the person has found a final answer to which they must now cling, but because what seemed to separate them from their own nature no longer exists.
When a person truly is this, then and only then is it accomplished once and for all. Everything seems to have found its place anew. The dream of separation is over.
Only now can we speak of what it truly means to be human. For the body alone does not make us what we are in truth. Nor can reason, or even wisdom, accomplish what this innermost Self can. Only in this divine working is the human being’s true meaning revealed.
No wonder a person suffers so deeply in their supposed separation. To live in separation while sensing one’s own true nature must bring forth pain. For what they seek is not foreign to them. It is what they themselves are.