Groundless Embrace

"Reality transcends all of our notions about Reality. Reality is neither Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Advaita Vedanta, nor Buddhist. It is neither dualistic nor non-dualistic, neither spiritual nor nonspiritual. We should come to know that there is more Reality and sacredness in a blade of grass than in all of our thoughts and ideas about Reality. When we perceive from an undivided consciousness, we will find the sacred in every expression of life. We will find it in our teacup, in the fall breeze, in the brushing of our teeth, in each and every moment of living and dying.

Therefore we must leave the entire collection of conditioned thought behind and let ourselves be led by the inner thread of silence and intuitive awareness, beyond where all paths end, to that place of sacredness where we go innocently or not at all, not once but continually.

One must be willing to stand alone—in the unknown, with no reference to the known or the past or any of one’s condition-ing. One must stand where no one has stood before in complete nakedness, innocence, and humility.

One must stand in that dark light, in that groundless embrace, unwavering and true to the Reality beyond all self, not just for a moment but forever without end; for then that which is sacred, undivided, and whole is born within consciousness and begins to express itself. That expres-sion is the salvation of the whole. It is the activity of an inward revolution brought down into time and space...

An old friend finds you sitting on the bench in the park. She sits down beside you and asks, “What are you up to?” You love her as friends do, but what can you say? You’re already speechless, and as quiet inside as the dead. She doesn’t know it, but you’re in two different worlds, strangely intersecting here on this park bench. How do you reach across infinity to communicate with her?

For a moment you strain inside for the words with which to respond. There is a silent pause—is she onto you? Does she suspect something is different? A cool breeze caresses your face and the universe smiles inside you. “Oh, nothing really,” you say. “Absolutely Nothing.”

-- Adyashanti, The Way of Liberation