non-separation

At the very heart of the enlightened state of being, is the sense of non-separation. Even that is a somewhat misleading way of saying it. For this feeling, of the undivided nature of existence, is so natural that you can hardly say it’s a feeling at all. Rather, it is a lack, or the absence, of the feeling of separation.

Ordinarily, people feel separate: from each other; from existence; and internally fragmented into many separate parts. It is the thinking mind, the symbolic mind, which creates divisions where in reality none exist. It is in the nature of words to divide existence in this way. A word is a discrete thing, not continuous in nature. It symbolises a subset of existence and creates a division between that subset and the rest of existence, in our mind, in our consciousness. And yet, without the thought, without the word, that division does not exist.

This way of separating things is deep in our thinking mind. And we take it for reality, this divided world. And therein lies our problem, the root problem, the problem from which all other problems spring. For once the world is divided, by the mind, there will be conflict: conflict between oneself and others; struggle between oneself and the rest of existence; and, internally, a conflict between the different parts of the persona.

All this conflict drops away when, in silence, we see that words are not holding truth. They are merely an approximate representation of reality. They are not to be confused with reality itself. In this non-separation, there is no space for conflict. Problems are not possible. In the space of non-separation, peace is, at last, ours.