The Ocean

I want to tell a little story that may give an example of how these things fit in. We can all visualize the ocean. We can see this beautiful ocean and how deep it is. We can see how many different colors it has depending on what time of the day it is. We see waves way out in the ocean and waves that are breaking on the sand. We see that the waves are all slightly different. Some waves are tall, some are short. Some waves as they crest look white, some bluish, some yellowish, some have foam on them. We see all these different waves.

Just pretend we are one of these waves and we are having a discussion with the other waves. We can be discussing things pertaining to waves and water. We can be running around having a lot of funjumping up and down and looking at the foam, comparing our height to somebody else’s height. We can talk about all our accomplishments and adventures as waves.

We are playing and looking around. Suddenly we hear a tremendous noise that we haven’t heard before. We look harder and some of us see that pretty soon we are going to hit the shore and the sand. Then this gigantic natural fear takes over us and we say. “My god, we are going to disappear. We’re no longer going to be waves. We’re going to hit the sand. What’s going to happen to us? I’m no longer going to be this color or that color. I’m not going to be skinny. I’m not going to be fat. I’m not going to be high. I’m not going to be low. I’m not going to be the most intelligent wave. I am going to disappear.” And this horrible fear takes over.

We try to fight it. We try to go with the riptide back into the ocean. But we can’t do it. Eventually we hit the sand or the rocks and become droplets. And then we get pulled back and back. We go back into the ocean. We look around and say to ourselves, “Why was I so afraid? I was water when I was a wave. I am water here in the ocean. I have always been water. How silly of me that I thought I was a wave and that I was going to disappear. I have always been water.”

The same thing goes for us. We identify with this body and we think this is all that is. We play our games and do what we do. The years pass. Our bodies change. We’re not as handsome or as beautiful as we were before. We’re not as fast. We’re not as intelligent. And the time comes that this unbearable thought of death comes to our mind. It’s the same kind of thought the wave hadthat we are going to disappear. And in a way we are going to disappear.

Our form is going to disappear just as the wave did.

But That that we are will not disappear.

Just the form changes.

That that we are was never born and will never die. In That there are changes of formwaves, raindrops, snow, hail, lakes, rivers, oceanbut it’s all essentially water.

So this is who we arespend time with That.

Start to acknowledge it. Be with it.

Give up searching, reading another book, going on some other expedition, needing to have someone tell you something that eventually enslaves you or puts you in bondage. Stop searching. What you are searching for you already are.

This is what freedom isnot to have a teacher, not to have a teaching, not to have students, not to have a preacher that says you must do these things to have a future life. There is nothing to follow. There is nothing to do.

Just understand that who you are,

what your true nature is,

is indescribable, indestructible, and ongoing.

And this understanding comes without charge. There is nothing to follow. Everybody is a “leader” in this situation once we understand that there is nothing to follow.