Separation

Today I heard a comment like, "Separation causes suffering." Many in the room were quite quick to agree and there was much nodding of heads and murmured yeses. Separation is looked at as something to overcome; an undesirable, unrealized state of being. While it is so that "separation causes suffering," it seems that a vital understanding of what separation really "causes" is often overlooked.

What is experienced here, these days, is that separation causes everything. Without separation, nothing would appear to exist. Separation causes all phenomena to appear, so, yes, separation causes suffering; and it also causes joy, happiness, sorrow, me, you, rocks, trees, other, birds, love, hate...all apparent objects, feelings, thoughts, etc. exist, because of the apparently separated "I". In short, separation causes life.

It is because of this idea of separation that "I" experience beautiful sunsets, birds singing, the embrace of another, the sting of rejection, the pain of acid reflux, aging in the body, a solar eclipse, being flipped off by another driver, and on and on and on.

Separation is not a "state of being" to be overcome. It's not a feeling that needs to be conquered. It's what allows It/Me/One to experience Itself/Myself/InfiniteForms.

With separation: life, existence, phenomena. Without separation--the undifferentiated void.

Haunting

I'm haunting my old life. Or more accurately, my "old" life is haunting me.

It feels like there used to be something here--let's call it Me--and now there's nothing but vapor. Either way, I'm walking in shoes that no longer fit; pretending "I" exist when I know that I've got no more substance than a shadow or a ghost.

Everything has shifted since I realized I was done seeking. It's the most subtle of shifts, but it makes all the difference. This incredibly subtle shift in perspective happened, and the entire structure collapsed. Not only the identity of the self has collapsed, but of the entire world. It feels somewhat like watching the twin towers come down. The entire bedrock on which "I" based "my" existence is dissolving and being swept away by a massive Void. It's like The Nothing (from "The Neverending Story") is sweeping through and taking that "old" life back to Itself.

What's amazing, is that this isn't scary. In fact, it's fascinating. It's even familiar. This awareness of the void is present all the time now and feels like it's growing.

What's interesting is what is still hanging around--what I call the "old" life--what hasn't yet disappeared into the Void (if it ever does). The trappings of life that existed before are still here: there's still the husband, the cats, the relatives, the friends, the job. It seems further proof that "I" didn't bring it into existence, "I" have nothing to do with it being here and "I" will not be the one to decide when it disappears. I just find it fascinating that it's all still here, and that all of it feels less substantial than air--ghosts of an existence that has never more than a mirage anyway.