Chris Bourne, Openhand Contributor
Waking Times 

We’re living in an illusion. But it’s a very real illusion, a very noisy one. Our lives are full of busyness and external distraction like no other time in the history of mankind. It’s as if everything created has been purposefully designed to pull us into the external drama, to tempt us, to invest us, to entrap us. The paradox is, that every external ‘entertainment’ is but a reflection, often quite a distorted one, of an end goal that each soul is really, ultimately looking for. It’s a place of absolute perfection, crystal clear clarity. It is infinite potential yet absolutely empty. It is the beginning, the end, and everything in between. It is the Void of Silence…

It begins with no-thing

Th universe began with no-thing. If it began with some-thing, where did that some-thing come from? Who created it and how was the creator created? Throughout our history, the human mind has played endless control games with that conundrum! The problem is that the mind is so used to some-thing, that it’s practically impossible to imagine no-thing. It’s like trying to stop your heart beating or lungs breathing. That’s what they’re built for. Like a camera, the mind’s purpose is to take continual ‘snap-shots’ of what’s going on. And there’s never no-thing going on.

So you can’t truly imagine no-thing. All you can really do is experience it. And when you truly, ultimately do, it’s like all the lights of realisation suddenly got turned on at once. After eons of struggling noisyness, there is crystal clear clarity, absolute silence in amongst life’s busy goings-on. A realisation that’s all there is: everything you’ve been seeking, a stillness and empty completeness, that eclipses all you’ve ever hopelessly searched for.So when it happens, you simply know. And you can’t know before it. You can’t even imagine it. This is where it all came from. This is the ultimate ‘creator’, with the power to shape the microcosym of your life and simultaneously the macrocosym of the entire universe. It existed prior to the bigbang, and the baffling paradox is, it still exists here and now, in the background of every event, situation and circumstance, every thought, feeling and emotion we have.

Being and not-being

The known universe is a dynamic equilibrium between being and not-being. It is the state of infinite potential immediately prior to the bigbang, and simultaneously, everything that sprang from it that exists now. In this moment.

“To be” is the question.
“and to not be” is the answer.

The Void of Silence simply separated into ‘parts’. Pure presence became pure consciousness. Consciousness that is simply awareness of a difference: of “this” and “that”, of “up” and “down” of “left” and “right”. This simple dynamic emerged as a ripple of relativity through space. Consciousness and matter are one. Density, solidity and materiality are only manifestations of relativity, condensations of consciousness. They are simply transient experiences and nothing more.

This is the ultimate problem the mind – the ego – has in trying to grasp it: the ego is used to singular truths.There is a truth for this and that. After initial Awakening, there’s realisation and acceptance that we all have a truth, there’s plurality yes, but still another step to be made: holding the notion of two – apparently contradictory truths simultaneously – that this is all an illusion, yet it is a very real illusion. There is existence, but existence arises from non existence, the background Void of Silence. Here. In this singular moment of now.

Flight of the Kingfisher

There’s two problems that people encounter when trying to find the Void of Silence: (1) if you’re purposefully looking for it, then you immediately create the cause of separation from it. (2) when you find it, it is so complete, so crystal clear that the ego wants to own it with some kind of label, like “infinite love” for example. But once you’ve formed some kind of internal relationship to it, just like a mirage in the desert, the Void of Silence immediately vanishes…

“How can you see yourself when you are all there is? Here is the divine paradox then – when we are looking for it, it remains always just out of reach like a young child grasping at a helium filled balloon; but when we just let go and open ourselves up, the ‘target’ of our aspiration moves to us. In other words, we fall into it.

It is metaphored wonderfully for us in the place of all clear answers – Mother Nature. Consider the Kingfisher; since light refracts (bends) when it leaves the surface of water, the Kingfisher never actually sees the exact location of the fish. It simply heads for the image but knows at some point, that it must step off its trajectory and delve completely into the unknown. Ignoring the image itself – the illusionary reality – it dives through the surface into absolute truth, whereupon its goal is finally realised.

So it is with the soul. The soul is our trajectory to an illusionary target. We follow the path, but at some point, we will see past the target and simply fall into the truth. Then we become the truth and have continual experiences of it; all of life offers the opportunity to taste the constant crystal clear clarity of non-identified presence. Thoughts, emotions, feelings and even the heartfelt longing of the soul all arise within this infinite, unadulterated potential and yet it remains always there – the Seer – an inviolable eternal existence.”
(extract from Five Gateways: Our Journey of Ascension)

Softening into Ego’s tightness

So you can’t find the Void of Silence with purposeful silence. Because the very act of intentful purpose creates the very condition of separation from it. You might still the mind for a while, but who is it inside trying to quieten the thoughts? It is only ego that tries to get rid of the ego.

But there is something you can ‘do’. You can continually cease doing, efforting, resisting, denying or trying at all. You can continually move into pure being. Which means – like the King Fisher – to follow the path of your soul – and allow authentic doing to arise from this place. It is to follow the heart felt pull and to trust that when you ‘do’ this, all answers, solutions and goals will simply fall into place.The soul arises from the Void of Silence, which like the camera, the ego then owns an image of and forms an identity around. So if you continually confront the identity by observing inner tightness around day-to-day interactions – resistances, frustrations and need for an outcome – then soften into the tightness, which is unwinding the efforting your ego was already living with, then you’ll drop into the trajectory of the soul. You’ll become the soul. And here’s the heavenly paradox…

By unwinding the need for any outcome,
and surrendering to the heartfelt pull,
softening into the ego’s tightness,
you’ll experience the pure beingness of the soul
– and simultaneously –
you’ll get a taste of the tasteless,
that which precedes the soul,
the dynamic equilibrium between being and not being
is finally realised.

The delusion of non-duality

This heavenly dynamic equilibrium shines the light on another misconception prevalent in some spiritual circles right now: the delusion of non-duality.

It is the idea, the notion that we are all one and the same. Indeed, at an absolute level we are. But the absolute can only be experienced through multiplicity of form – through separation. You can’t divorce yourself from everything that is going on around. Well, I should more accurately say, you can delude yourself that you are, but really all that’s happening is another subtle layer of identity that is avoiding experience.It’s like the fine skin of a bubble encompassing the Void of Silence. A bubble of unity which feels connected, calm and loving, one which people tend to touch immediately prior to the pure presence of the Void. But like the Kingfisher, you have to burst through this final bubble of identity to truly fall into the Void. Following the undenied trajectory of the soul ultimately causes the bubble to ‘pop’, to explode into eveythingness everywhere.

No, the eye of the bubble does not exist as a location. You can’t ‘find’ it inside yourself. You can’t move to it. The Void of Silence is to be found in and through all things. To be truly enlightened is to be enlightened in and through all events and circumstances, not avoiding anything. When we fully allow it, it moves to us. We can look inside yes, but it can only be found everywhere.

Journey of the Soul

What we can do is to keep surrendering. Keep confronting the tightness, neediness or denial of what the moment is truly inviting. We can align with the heart felt pull. We can watch our motivations for action and soften into the need of any kind of outcome, yet totally committing ourselves without reservation to what we’re given to do.

This will align us with the natural flow of the universe, with the journey of our soul. The universe is simply happening. No one intended it. If we can move without intention, we’ll drop into the experience of the Void of Silence and simultaneously become it, expressing fully from it.
It feels like heaven.In fact such liberation, such emptiness, feels so good, and sometimes so terrifying, that we’ll keep wanting to land on the safe shore of the ego once more; just for a respite as the trajectory into the void mercilessly shreds anything that is still hanging on. So we’ll pop in and out of the Journey of the Soul until finally there is complete surrender, complete alignment. It is then that we fall finally into the Void of Silence.

Chris

This article originally appeared at Openhandweb.org, a project to elevate the consciousness of man and provide healing to those in need.

This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.

~~ Help Waking Times to raise the vibration by sharing this article with the buttons below…