The journey to awakening is not linear. It winds and loops back upon itself in a spiral of insights and setbacks. We glimpse the truths that set us free, only to find ourselves once again lost in ignorance. This is the nature of the path. Each time we notice we have strayed from freedom into ignorance, we must see it as a grace. For in that moment of noticing, we are awake – we are free.
When awareness breaks through the cloud cover of delusion, even for an instant, it is a miracle. The light has pierced the darkness and revealed its inherent emptiness. Suddenly, we know ourselves as unlimited consciousness, no longer a fragmentary self encapsulated in fear and grasping. This is liberation. Yet, we cannot cling to this state of freedom. Like a baby bird leaving the nest, it arrives unexpectedly. We open our hands to let it go.
The gift is not the ecstatic state but the truth it symbolizes. Nonduality cannot be possessed or maintained, only recognized again and again. Each glimpse triggers a cascading of insights, unraveling the knots of identification with the personal self. We come to trust this process, no longer resisting the flow.
At times, we may fall back into painful ignorance and self-judgment. The spiritual ego admonishes us for losing sight of what we thought was won. But the heart knows there is no one to condemn. There is nothing to attain or avoid. Our only duty is to let grace reveal our freedom in each moment.
When lost in the trance of separation, we suffer unnecessarily by making an enemy of life. At the instant we notice this activity, freedom dawns again. Here, we can bow and offer thanks for the reminder that suffering is optional. We can let go and rest in the fullness of being, if only for a breath. Each of these moments plants a seed for the next.
There will always be more glimpses because what we are can never be obscured for long. The sole work is to stop interfering when they occur. Our only responsibility is to receive wakefulness when it comes. To allow our fixed ideas about spiritual states to dissolve. This letting go is the doorway to abiding peace.
Freedom is here now, cloaked in the ordinary. We need not grasp for anything more. Life becomes the joyful play of consciousness with itself. The heart opens and closes, opens and closes, in awe of its own hidden perfection. Everything we need is this gift of awareness shining through. Noticing its eternal presence is the one grace that truly liberates.