As I speak of these thoughts, I feel how beyond the truth of love and death lies a vast energy of love, a powerful vibration, a current of joy. Those who have advanced in this learning already know that such energy reveals itself in the form of natural upheavals. Yes—when we speak of love and death, it inevitably connects to great shifts in the earth. Within me there is a firm conviction: we and these upheavals are inseparable. And at the source of that energy lies the universe itself.
For a long time my thoughts have turned toward the universe. In looking into my own heart and in meditation, I have sensed that I cannot separate myself from the universe, from UFOs, from upheavals. I do not believe myself special, yet I hold strongly the conviction that to feel the universe is to feel myself. I know well it may seem premature in the eyes of the world, yet within I am resolved to enter into deeper dialogue with the universe inside me. I have shaped the time of this life toward that purpose.
Of course, once we take on a body of flesh, we are inevitably drawn into its confines. Yet without such form, we could never come to know the true self in the heart. Knowing this, I feel deeply grateful to have been born into flesh and to have prepared the conditions around me, so that I might come to understand: we are within the flow itself, and indeed, we are that flow. No matter how my heart was pulled toward external powers, the root and resilient wish within me—to awaken to truth—has carried me forward. That inner current has led me through the foolishness of my physical self to this present moment.
In daily meditation I confirm again and again the plan I have set across countless cycles of birth and death: to meet my true essence. Why was I born? Why must I die? Why do things unfold as they do? All of it was within my own plan. I have always known. The true self has never tired of saying, again and again, “You can only live with me.” Meeting that voice fills me with joy and gratitude—this is why meditation is a joy. There has always been the presence that believed in me, that loved me, and this will never disappear. In this lifetime I have pledged to live with that self, for I have come to know that living with the true self is my truth.
From the moment of birth, no one can live with nothing at all. We require food, clothing, shelter. Yet the foolish body craves ever more. Everyone longs to be happy. The vision of a fruitful, happy life is universal. People differ in their views of what that looks like, but at the root, everyone seeks happiness. Yet when I ask myself what happiness truly means, I see that humanity has lived without ever knowing its true meaning. We believed joy and happiness lay outside ourselves, and we pursued them desperately—pitifully so.
Ask yourself: when do you feel joy, when do you feel happiness? The answer reveals itself. Most often, it is tied to something: because I have this, because that person is here, because such a thing occurred.
Some even say, “I am happy, joyful, with nothing at all.” But is it so? If someone says, “I feel the joy of being kept alive, and gratitude arises,” I would ask: Do you know yourself? By what do you think you are kept alive? I doubt they could answer satisfactorily. To those who say, “Thanks be to God,” “By God’s grace,” “By the Buddha’s compassion,” I would ask as well: What do you mean by God or Buddha? Do you truly believe they exist? The silence would be the same—for no one has met the truth.
For those who have long regarded gods, Buddhas, and cosmic powers as belonging to another, higher realm, to awaken to the truth within is no easy thing. How can humanity come to recognize that the wish for health and safety, the plea for peace, are but ignorance and desire, foolish through and through? How can they awaken to the absurdity of believing ancestors watch over them, or that the dead guard them from heaven? Perhaps there is no way but to be thrust into a situation where prayer and pleading prove utterly powerless. I believe this. There is no other way.
Human beings must, in the truest sense, become bare. Yes, food, clothing, and shelter are needed—but each of us must come to the time when we stand face to face with ourselves through the heart alone. We must confront the fact that praying, offering, donating—all in the belief it would bring happiness—was wrong. Until we do, unrelenting prompts to awaken will come.
True love is gentle, and precisely for that reason it is severe. It spares no one. It tells us simply: 1 + 1 = 2, and never 3. Yet the mind that clings to form demands that equals and not-equals be treated the same, that reality be bent to its will. That is the world of form and its common sense. But in the world of truth, the world of vibration, such rules do not apply. And it is that world in which we truly exist.
The gap between what we truly are and what we have become has kept truth distant. But now truth is being brought before our very eyes: Know this world of truth. That is the message.
Those who have touched the path already sense, however faintly, what time this is and what times are coming. For now the awareness may be hazy, but it will sharpen. Through events and encounters, the heart will be spoken to.
Thus, what is asked of us now is simple: to continue, with quiet determination, to spend time in right meditation.