The experiences that we habitually see as our "normal" lives exist within an already larger universe that is largely unseen; learning to stay awake within ourselves is the same as having the opportunity to glimpse a new and expanded reality whose new view naturally lifts us up and out of our presently limited ideas about who we are.
As an example... consider the miracle existing in any piece of fruit... Watermelon juice is sweet. Lemon juice is sour. Yet, they're both water. Why is one sweet and one sour? What makes each of them water with a different quality? Something in the seed of each fruit instructs the plant to take something different from the ground and to process it in a different way. What was the intelligence that decided that? In what way does that intelligence act in our own lives? If you'll ask yourself these simple questions, you will start to see a whole new world right where you are; a world that is open and orderly; an invisible world of wisdom at work all around you, revealed in all things physical, yet hardly noticed by anyone.
And if we can see the beauty in this unseen world which patiently awaits our conscious entrance, then we must also ask ourselves the next question: When it's given to us to be ever-renewed explorers of higher and higher worlds right within our own, why then do we spend so much time thinking about so many proven worthless, self-tormenting, self-enclosing things?
The truth here is troubling to those self-pleasing pictures we all have of ourselves, but results reveal the rule: We are not awake in our own life experience. The miracles are missed because we, ourselves, are missing.
Bound up as we are within the closed world of our own thoughts, we see virtually nothing other than what the false self of the moment wants us to see. We miss the miracles around us -- and lose their vital life lessons in the process. What are intended to be our new experiences are taken in and twisted by thought's interpretation, turned into something familiar that it knows how to deal with. And its interpretations are always some variation on a past theme dished out again in one form or another.
Can you begin to see what going through life in this way does to our daily experience? It fills us with an often unconscious but continuous feeling of deep boredom -- better known in these sadly sarcastic times as the "Been there -- Done that!" syndrome. The new car, the new relationship, the trip, the beautiful day: the enjoyment of all is marred by the unconscious reaction that "I've been through that." People go to extremes seeking new thrills, believing the spontaneity and real pleasure they seek will be found in the next activity. They never realize that no matter what they do it can never be new, because that which experiences the event within them is mechanical and old, twisting everything new into what has already been.
By contrast, in real life, everything is an original. Think back to a time you might have spent in a park, at the seashore, in a garden. What is it about a natural setting that makes it splendid and sacred, that gives rise to feelings of pleasure? Think about the sound of a stream. What is it that makes it nice? Why do we find it always refreshing? It's because a river never sounds the same way twice. It's the same wherever we look in nature. Every moment is an original moment. And within the world of nature, we see nothing but originals. No pine tree is exactly like any other. No sparrow is the same as any other sparrow.
Why is it then that in a world that is continually new, we ourselves do not experience a continual sense of newness? It is because we do not meet this newness with something that is new in us, alive in the present moment. We do not experience life directly. Instead, it is one thought or another that meets life for us. And since thought itself is a product of memory, and interprets everything to fit its memory-produced momentary purpose, the world we experience becomes repetitious and old.
We are born with a nature that is as new as each original moment, and that always meets this new moment for the first time. The life experiences that pass easily through this new nature are themselves always new. They are not a creation of any past experience, which means each is incomparable. Because of this special state, none are ever found to be wanting. This free original self that experiences everything directly is in communion with life, for it does not interfere with it nor wish it to be different. It does not seek to capture an identity in any event, for living in harmony with the fullness of life, it already has everything it needs. It does not turn in on itself to find completion, and therefore does not ensnare itself in a world that, by its own fragmentary nature, must always be incomplete and cut off.
How can we free ourselves of the thought nature and come to live this direct life? It is by catching ourselves each time our lower nature is about to turn in on itself, and instead, open the circle.
Whether we're criticizing ourselves or applauding ourselves, each time we turn in we're cutting ourselves off. Our misguided thoughts tell us we're completing the circle by latching onto an identity and making ourselves feel real, but our continuing feelings of being lost prove to us that we are, in reality, only isolating ourselves by our unconscious actions. Every time we turn the conversation to the desires of the false self, instead of experiencing the fullness of the moment and the people in it, we're cutting ourselves off. Every time we pursue a goal that our minds tell us will make us feel right about ourselves in its fulfillment, and we forget that in the higher world everything has already been achieved for us, we're cutting ourselves off.
It may sound too simple, but the truest things in life usually are: The secret of winning a new life is to refuse to turn in on yourself. Instead, turn it loose. Turn loose your despair, your fear, your false excitement. Turn loose the self-image that seeks to entrench itself in the moment and take temporary control. Open up the circle and find the magic of the original moment.