Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for,
behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Luke 17:20-21
It seems almost impossible. If we haven’t got it already, how to get it? We go all over the world, into the farthest reaches of space and down to the tiniest atoms – searching for “it”. As if there were something other than “it”. Some way to separate it from us, some way we could possibly miss.
This simplicity is the barrier. The mind can’t fathom the ease of being, it can’t be patient enough to call off this relentless searching. We aren’t really capable of relaxing because that requires a complete trust in existence, the dis-ease of the self comes to the forefront, pulling us this way and that.
Patience means it as if the sea has calmed down – not a single ripple, just mirrorlike. The interesting thing is that the moon always shines above – if the sea could calm down and become mirrorlike, it could catch the moon in its reflection this very moment. But an agitated sea, full of waves, can’t catch the moon.
Osho
Thoughts are the ripples of our mind distorting the bliss and relaxation of infinity. We go on stirring up the sea, we won’t let it settle down long enough to see the moon reflected clearly. But just a glimpse, and we are changed forever. Once you have seen the clear moon, then all this thrashing about and struggling seems absurd. The residue of the agitated mind continues for some time, but you are no longer feeding it. Before long, it goes away and doesn’t return. This divine play is set in motion, there is nothing needed on your part other than to get out of the way.
It is effortless and limitless, the splendor of this world. Only in the mind is there this great struggle, the back and forth, the weighing and manipulating and worrying. And where does it get us? It only makes more ripples in the sea.
Jeff Nirenberg 