The Other

I have a very subtle feeling that someone is watching me read this book. It is not a person, but it is enjoying watching me read, watching me smile, watching me savor a good line.

This Other is here with me, but there is no person in the room with me. It is not another person who is watching. It is an unknowable watcher, formless, tasteless, but it tastes what I taste, feels what I feel, knows what I know. And it enjoys it.

Since I have given up knowing, the watcher has appeared. Perhaps it is the humility of giving up, of letting go, that allows this Other to be felt. I know that it watches over me, protects me.

It's not that this Other will keep things from happening to me, but that this Presence is there, and by it's presence, I am safe.

Waking up may simply be becoming aware of this Other. The Other is always there. In fact, it is so there, and been there so long, and so taken for granted, that I didn't notice it. I was too busy being myself to notice.

While we are busy being ourselves, our focus is narrow, limited. Any sense of any other is dimmed. Others are just a means to an end. We may get what we are focused on, but miss everything else.

In our busyness we forget we have excluded others. The downside is that we miss Otherness, and the big Other of others, is the One.

The Other doesn't tap you on the shoulder. It doesn't say, "Hey, here I am. See me?" No, it is a very humble presence. It is presence that is willing to stay on the sidelines, unnoticed, until you look.

When we are busy with trying to understand, assuage our egos, protecting our positions, we don't notice any other, especially a quiet, subtle Other. The Other has infinite patience and will wait as long as we live, and longer, perhaps many lifetimes.

Lately, having given up knowing, praying only for revelation, perhaps I opened the door to the Other, just a crack. But that little crack has revealed a presence. And it's fun to notice the Presence. It's interesting to be aware of It.

I am just walking down the hall at my office and I am aware of something other walking with me, knowing I am walking, knowing I am aware of It. There is a confidence in the person when I know I am not alone.

It is a soft presence. And I wonder why it has come now? I can only guess it is because I know that I cannot do this understanding alone. It is not my understanding, but the understanding of the Other.

I cannot figure this out myself, for myself. No, I have to submit to It. For I, a person, an idea, built of experience in this body, did not create myself. I am a created being. To understand, I have to give myself to the Other.

As long as I am defending my ego, feeling that I am going to figure this out myself, with my own mind, my own effort, I could not sense the Other. How could I?

This body/mind is a product, a program through which something greater than myself experiences. That greater power, that greater consciousness, is the Other.

This body/mind is just the container of content, limited content. And when I focus on the limited content, I get limited results. If I want to know Otherness, the context must be included.

Context is the greater, the broader, the Other. I the person/body/mind am a vehicle only. One among many vehicles. As long as I believe I am the driver, I have lost the larger context. For I am a created being, a product of something greater.

I am the driver, experiencer in appearance only. The Other is the real driver, for he created the vehicle, and the space, and all the others. This experience of being in a body and having a mind is really His.

I am the content, the object through which the Other experiences. My miss perception, that me, myself, is the experiencer is only eclipsed when I become aware of the Other.

That Other is looking through my eyes, and through my neighbor's eyes, and through my boss's eyes.

I am in the play, unconscious that I am an actor, until I am willing to admit that I know nothing. When I know I know nothing, then I am open to what is really here. And what is really here is this Other, this creator, this force, this Source.

My only prayer is "Source, reveal yourself to me, so that I may merge with you. Reveal yourself to me, for I cannot find you. I can only ask for revelation, so reveal what I cannot find and understand."

And with this prayer, made in earnest, I begin to sense the Other. And in this Other's presence, I can merge. And only in merging can I know.

Intuitively We Know Nothing

"...I wanted to cry with joy and just lay with him in the bed and stay that way for hours, saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing, thinking nothing, just loving him and becoming nothing but one nothing inside another nothing and that nothing not bothering with anything."

~ Denise Chavez ~ from her novel Loving Pedro Infante.

I like light reading sometimes, especially if it's funny, raw, and well written. Escaping into this novel, I was surprised to run across the lines above. Who doesn't know this? Who hasn't experienced the above when madly in love.

What this tells me is that we DO know this. We just don't stay there. This is what enlightenment is all about, that merging into nothingness. Nisargadatta stated that "When I am nothing, then I am everything."

When it comes to enlightenment, at the end, one finally admits that "I can't do this." Perhaps this is getting close. It doesn't mean you don't want enlightenment. It doesn't mean your longing has ceased. I just means that you know YOU can't do it. You can't remain an individual separate self and do this.

The only thing left to do is pray, and that prayer goes something like this, "Lord, you know I want this, don't want to live without this, but I can't do it. I know I can't do it. Lord have mercy on me and take me there, into that nothing that is everything where I can be at peace."

Peace is only in the oneness that is everything. Since that is the natural state, it is not too much to ask. But you really have to want it, and you have to know that you as a person, a mind, can't do it, can't go there. Give it up.