In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave we are first presented with the image of individuals chained in place while observing shadowy figures on a cave wall. That is their life experience. For them, the shadows on the wall are true reality. But when released from their chains, they can finally turn around and see the stick figures behind them that are reflected on the wall. These stick figures are now their new true reality. In the light of this larger reality the reflections on the cave wall have now become illusions. Eventually, these individuals leave the cave, stand in unobscured sunlight, and realize that all that that was previously known as truth, as reality, was false. The brilliance of the sun is Plato’s metaphor for the ultimate unchanging truth that is the essence of a fully awakened life.
The same can be said about the seeming reality of a night dream. In that dream – visual images, thoughts, emotions, and dramas – are experienced as truth, as a definite reality. There is no question about it. Only when we awaken from our night’s sleep do we realize that what appeared so true and real in the night dream, was indeed false, another mental illusion masquerading as true reality.
But what about our waking state? From morning until night we experience a panorama of people, objects, beliefs, and emotions. And for us, over days, years, and perhaps a lifetime that is our truth, our final reality. We can touch, smell, taste, and name it so it must certainly be real. Surely we have settled into the true actuality of things. And that is something we can all agree on, don’t we?
Permit me to inquire further. What would happen if we suddenly awoke from our ordinary day-to-day reality of people and things, much as we have from the night dream? What would that be like? What would we discover? Is there a further unseen truth and understanding from which our ordinary daily experiences would as well seem a mental creation, made from the same stuff as Plato’s cave or the night dream? Is this possible? Could our daily world that seems so real and solid be yet another dream-like creation of our mental imagination?
Surprisingly, the answer, we are told, is yes, an emphatic yes! Wise women and men have universally, across time and culture, called this final awakening enlightenment? They have given it many names by which to contrast it from the dream state or ordinary waking state. They have called it Divine nature, Christ nature, the Tao, Buddha Nature, and Satchitananda, among other names. But such names make it seem so mysterious, distant and inaccessible, even though we all have tasted it in our own experience.
At one time or another we have each experienced this place of presence, beingness, and full awareness. It occurs unexpectedly when we awaken from our usual experience and recognize the larger reality that always rests unseen at the center of our being. This can be catalyzed by an immersion in nature, the depths of intimacy, art, beauty, dance, music, meditation, the extremes of exercise, or a sudden unexpected shock.
What do each of these catalysts have in common? For a moment, our ordinary sense of self and daytime reality is suspended. Suddenly and without awareness we lose a sense of who we believe we are. We lose the seeming solidity of our ordinary world. And, we recognize once again who we truly are at the core of our being. We lose separateness, time, and our personal self and discover a natural condition of serenity, flow, and complete ease. For a brief moment, our day-to-day experience appears to be insubstantial, if not forgotten completely. And we don’t even know what is happening.
For that moment we have exited the cave, the night dream, and the daydream and touched the final truth and possibility of the human experience, which resides in the center of our being. And this final, spacious, and impersonal presence is playful, good, serene, joyful, wise, free, and effortlessly flowing. We experience a pervasive release and sense of well-being. And at the time, it all feels quite ordinary, simple, and effortlessly natural.
The next time this happens to you, and it will, observe what is happening, not with your thinking mind but with your heart. Ask who you really are, examine what is most truthful for you in that moment – this larger reality or your more contracted and bounded day-to-day existence.
Because our usual mind-made world is jealous and possessive of its dominance over our lives, it quickly brings us back to our day-to-day “reality.” Oh, that was just a beautiful moment, life cannot be like that, there are things to do, and so on, our ordinary self says. And soon, we find ourselves drawn back to the tenacious daydream of ordinary life, which reassumes its undeserved place in the center of our life while dismissing and denying our true center, which we brush off as a fantastical glimpse or momentary reverie.
Whether we perceive our life from the platform of a transcendent and unchanging truth or our acquired ego self makes all the difference. The latter is more or less our daily usual life experience with its joys and struggles that ultimately leads to an unstable downward cycle – spiritually, emotionally, and physically. The former is the awakened state of the great sages, mystics, and many seemingly ordinary individuals who have overcome a false and conditioned belief in a mind-made self to achieve the unchanging and transcendent well-being of our natural self.
If there is a sincere and unrelenting determination to realize the truth of ones life, we can intentionally wake-up to our natural and authentic self. This can increasingly become the “operating system” of daily existence. Then, everything shifts. The seemingly solid and tenacious daydream is undermined and the true human condition re-asserts itself – here, right now in the present moment. Although it is called divine, sacred, and enlightened, paradoxically, it is actually quite ordinary. It is who we actually are, who we have always been.
So how can we “prime” the transition towards a life lived from the center of our being? This awakening, this realization of our true self should be the singular aim of all meditation practice in and out of formal session. If we can move away from our obsession with meditation as a relaxation technique or as a tool for personal pleasure, comfort, or self-improvement, we can begin to practice and learn in a way that leads to inner transformation.
Awakening practices focus on the direct experience of the moment minus a mental commentary, the unconditioned clear and precise perception of life as it is, and the effortlessness ease of resting in our natural state. Some call these higher teachings, wisdom teachings, or non-dual teachings. That can be a bit intimidating and off-setting. In actuality these teachings and practices are no more than the re-discovery of our natural state of beingness. They are actually quite simple and natural. They are being alive, being a human being.
We are each born into this simple existence and presence. It never leaves us. That is who we are. And that must be the primary aim of meditation. As the poet T.S. Eliot writes, “… the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
www.elliottdacher.org