The Pageless Book

Above Photo by Dino Olivieri. Photo Below by The Wandering Angel.

Meditation is act of making your “self” small, so that the Truth might rise to the surface. We each already have Truth; it is an instinctive part of human composition. Truth is built into every cell of your body, every motion, moment and memory. However, this “self” pushes that Truth down, obscuring our view and hindering our reach.

It isn’t the original intent of the self to obscure or hinder the Truth. We are each endowed with an ego to aid in our survival. In order to ensure our well being, we must each care about that being that is ourselves. The sense of self, or ego, is a system of ideas and emotions that collectively serve to protect our individual persons from harm. It also works in concert with our ability to reason to further help secure our safety. Because our ego works so closely with our ability to reason, we can sometimes become confused between the self and the logic it uses to keep us safe. The philosophical conclusion “I think, therefore I am” is evidence of this confusion.

We each come to the determination that “I think, therefore I am” at a very young age, which is then reinforced by the society in which we are born. It isn’t by any means incorrect nor can it be called true; this concept is merely useful. This immature idea is a stepping stone to a greater understanding, yet achieving that understanding is not essential to our survival. So we hesitate to exert ourselves in the search for Truth.

Our existence is not dependent upon our thought, but instead is dependent upon our perception. We each become so tied up in our own inner dialogue that we forget what is happening outside ourselves. As each layer of ego becomes cemented in our consciousness, it becomes harder to separate our perceptions from our sense of self. Everything becomes more subjective, no matter how much logic is applied to those perceptions. Our hearing is muted by the constant drone of dialogue, eyes dimmed by the theater behind our eyes, and skin numbed by the wild cold waters of our emotions.

Meditation helps quiet the chatter, end the film, and warm the body so we may pay attention to what is real. It makes our sense of self increasingly small, shrinking around us as we compare it to what we perceive. Slowly, consciousness comes to realize that what is perceived is just as much apart of it as the self. The self becomes like clothing that one dons to keep warm; necessary but not an integral part of a human being. With the self now under the control, Truth becomes obvious. In some cultures this state is called Heaven or Nirvana. This is what Jesus meant when he said that the Kingdom of his father was within.

Make the self small. Shrink it with heavy doses of humility and patience. Write yourself reminders that your “self” is entirely unimportant without the Truth which it conceals. Wrestle loose its blinds from your eyes so you may be free. The eye perceives, therefore both perceived and perceiver exists.