And she, the Sadhaka (student of the path), pushed away the world to enter herself, as all Sadhakas must. She was curious of her peace as all Sadhakas are.

Dear world, I am hunting my autonomy. I can tell now, after so many years, all I’ve been looking for is myself. While some infinitesimal part of me has always known this, now I know absolutely. I am relieved! The Self that I have always been is the treasure in this empty room. The room is empty because all there is is me. I am not alone because of this. In fact, I feel I am now more connected than ever. There is a world of others! But, all I have is what I am, a reality apart. Now apart, two realities can lock eye to eye. There is recognition. At long last, intimacy! I am not. But I am with you.

I am a student! Learning the ways of Self. So now I am striving to stand complete, supported by the rare confidence that permits an even rarer satisfaction. Oh life, you lovely thing, your gravitas is hypnotic and deceptive. You are golden light that holds my eyes in glowing ease. I woke up all of a sudden merged. There was nothing but your forms and shapes, and I dissolved within them. My concept of self became attached to all that was outside of myself. But I am not you! I am not that which is outside. I am not that which moves and shifts. I am not the world! You pull with relentless magnetism and because of your loveliness all of my being follows blindly into your great dance.

Oh, life, you teach me in secrecy that I am the audience, the observant mountain, so still I am invisible. You never instructed me outright to look away, but hoped in your privacy that the day would come where I do. I am hunting something new, the free figure without form. The one I know witnessing without name, but know either way.

And the world, happy for her recognition, responded in as soft a whisper as it could as to not pull her back into the illusion of names and form.

Dear sadhaka, you are right! I’ll speak softly to not wake you from your truth. You must learn to look away. Learn to know that all I am and all you held yourself to be was false not because it was untrue but because it was only true in part. The chick knows it is not the egg and the tree knows it is not the forest. But you, in your enthusiasm, loved so much that you began to believe you were the world. You thought you were so many things! Partners, homes, careers, memories, emotions, possessions, ideas, fears, clothes, morals, words said, words unsaid, achievements, failures… all of this was me, the world, inspirited by you!

We are entwined and bound. But we are different and that is a knowing that matters.