Life is not what you think. A few years ago, I had the specter of death following me for a year. That culminated in severe anemia that led to a diagnosis of tumors. This led to several operations—treatments and recovery from the treatments. Then recovery led to another stage, the past few years of remission from any tumors. This has been a lot of activity, unknowns that have ultimately led to a time of excellent health that I enjoy today.
And this was just one aspect of my life at that time, concurrently running with so many other parts, projects to complete and service to provide. Now, this is just one life, and since all life is sacred, multiply this life by so many billions of lives, all connecting, all important, all filled with powerful events that matter to the individual and to the lives that person touches.
And the essential point is this, while all these life-events are important, they are but a tiny portion of a much greater Reality. When you think of the ocean, the waves on the ocean’s surface are powerful and produce a lot of activity, still when compared to what is occurring below the surface, there is so much more ocean below than what is seen on the surface. You realize that the surface is but a miniscule percentage of the whole, and while not insignificant, especially to those busy riding the waves, surface living pales in significance to the real power and life found below. Worldly life is the wave action, the great Reality is what lies below.
Papa spent the first thirty plus years of his life tossed on the waves—as a boy eluding his school teacher to find a quiet spot to read Shakespeare, a young man learning the textile trade, being a husband and father—until he experienced a great awakening that led him in a completely new direction toward his beloved Ram. Mother lived as a little girl being hemmed in by the waves, rules her mother had to not leave the yard when playing, being the object of so much attention—as the only child of seven to live—a young woman making her way in a work world, with a glimmer of an awakening thought that there is more to existence, that she had a special destiny. But, so much lay hidden under the surface until meeting her great guru, who opened a window and showed her there was more to life.
For us, what is “below” the surface is experienced, if we are fortunate, in glimpses of a greater Reality—something we know exists but are not very conscious of it, even with the glimpses. To get to this greater Reality we must face a thin film of reality known as the subconscious mind. Through dreams and introspection, we gain greater awareness of the subconscious mind; those thoughts and emotions that are stored from times past, sometimes these memories are compressed psychic energy because they have been repressed. This reservoir of psychic energy can be a powerful player in a life, making fears, desires, both useful and destructive habits come to us from surprising depths. It is our past, the good, the bad, and the ugly bubbling up to the surface and costing us an enormous amount of mental energy to keep it at bay.
Besides the relatively thin layer of the subconscious mind, there is the vast Superconscious Mind—not usually directly perceived by the conscious mind. When the Superconscious Mind illumines the conscious mind it brings inspiration, intuitive flashes of truth, a higher order of Reality that supersedes either the normal waking conscious mind or the oftentimes murky depths of the subconscious mind. Even a glimpse of the beauty and transcendence of the Superconscious Mind can inspire life to new heights, awakens an awareness to a new way of experiencing a life—it is the doorway to the vast ocean that creates the waves of creation on the surface, but oh, is so much more.
The Superconscious Mind reveals what we call God, and God-consciousness. When this awakening occurs, what before may have been dismissed as myth, because it does not appear to belong to the surface waves of creation of the material world, suddenly takes on more than a theoretical potential, but a living Reality that is undeniable, powerful and enthralling. The old notion that the world of the five senses and what the human mind makes of this physical world is the ultimate reality falls away, and what is born is a vast Reality, the Reality of the tremendous ocean under the waves.
This Reality is blissful, enlightening, and leads to the supreme truth. The alternating waves of this material reality fade into a shadowy twilight compared to the rising dawn that reveals a bright and beautiful world all around. The astounded conscious mind discovers this Reality has always been with us, only the ordinary mind simply did not have the light to see it. The Buddha is a title that means the “Awakened One,” having the same meaning as the title the Christ, “The Anointed One.” It denotes the one who is awake to this greater Reality, sees it through newly awakened eyes, new understanding and awareness.
All those called to this path are here to awaken to this greater Reality. While we must navigate the waves on the surface of this material reality, our greater task is to explore the immensity below the waves. The story is told of the pearl divers. The pearl divers swim under the surface to find the valuable pearl, but only the divers who are willing to dive deep will discover it and know the wealth it promises. We too must learn to dive deep, to drop further down in meditation to truly experience the greater Reality. To merely play on the surface will never awaken this deeper life. God is bliss, ever-new joy, shining truth, and a living awareness of the eternal nature of life—all of this awaits the pearl diver for God-experience—it awaits you.