In front of my house, there’s a tree that stands five stories tall. I live on the fourth, so I live in conversation with its branches. I’ve named it Serefé, which is the word Turks use when toasting. Serefé!
Today I went to say hi; it had been a while. Its trunk, damp from the rain, was covered in vibrant lichen. At its feet lay the body of a bird, although it took me a while to recognize it as such because, in its decomposition process, it already resembled the earth to which it was returning. Life had abandoned it, like someone discarding a pair of shoes that no longer serve. It’s fine; now it nourishes the roots of Serefé, gathering strength for spring.
I went to yoga class this morning, and along the way, I was playing with an idea in my mind:
“There is one life, and that I share with God.”
This is what is called a contemplative practice. Meditation has its limits; you can’t always sit and close your eyes for half an hour. But you can ruminate on an idea throughout the day and let it gradually reveal its meaning.
In my student life in the United States, where people run more than they walk, it’s a practice that helps me find small moments of reconnection throughout the day. Sometimes it’s just a moment, a fleeting vision, but that’s all it takes to remember what I truly am.
Remember what I truly am…
In Spanish, to remember is “recordar”, which means to pass through the heart again. So, in those happy moments, I glimpse again in my heart the ineffable reality of what I am.
What this type of practice does is train my mind to distinguish increasingly subtle objects.
For example, notice the air around you that you are breathing.
The air is a more subtle “object” than the screen you are looking at, or your hands, or the sound reaching your ears. We rarely remember that we are immersed in a fluid, just like fish in water. It’s not hard to realize it; it only takes a thought, and suddenly there it is, surrounding us in all directions, floating around the entire Earth’s surface for all living beings to breathe.
Becoming aware of it creates space, doesn’t it? It expands the mind. Even if you continue looking at your phone, you are aware of the periphery, of the space you are in. I don’t know about you, but my shoulders relax when I expand my awareness in this way.
That is the power of words: they determine what your perception shows you, that is, the world in which you subjectively live.
Even if you don’t fully agree with it right now, if you spend 2 years consciously repeating “everything is so dirty,” what kind of world are you training yourself to see? If, on the other hand, you practice the thought “thank you for the infinite ways in which the world around me sustains me,” how will that affect the way you see your life?
This is what St. Augustine meant when he said, “Faith is believing in what you cannot see; the reward of faith is seeing what you believe.”
I’ve been playing with this for a while, doing a course called A Course in Miracles, which has 365 ideas to contemplate, one per day. All the ideas point towards God. All contain the whole Truth.
An analogy would be this: imagine 365 mirrors, all with different shapes, but all reflecting the same sun. Each mirror is different. The larger and cleaner ones reflect more light, and the smaller and darker ones reflect less. But the same sun can be seen in its entirety in all the mirrors. This is also true in the case of religions: their form and reflective capacity may vary, but they all reflect the same light.
Today’s mirror, number 167, showed this: “There is one life, and that I share with God.”
Right after waking up, I read it along with its explanation, and then repeated it in my mind over and over throughout the rest of the day, opening my mind to any change that might occur in my experience of the world.
That’s why I went to see Serefé after so long. Today, it didn’t appear in my perception as if it were urban furniture. Today, I went to greet the life that I am and that flows through its trunk just like through mine.
It’s what was absent in the bird’s body.
If becoming aware of the air around you creates a sense of space, becoming aware of the life animating you creates a sense of infinity, of sheer freedom. It also sparks a profound joy. My joy today was so exhuberant that a teacher asked me, “Are you okay?” in the middle of class. We were taking an exam, and it must have seemed strange to her that I was doing it with a smile from ear to ear, almost holding back laughter.
In India, they have a wonderful expression that encapsulates this: Sat-Chit-Ananda.
Sat refers to the ultimate reality, to what we truly are, beyond all beliefs. You can call it God, Life, consciousness, Being, Truth, Source, Christ, Buddha, or you can also not call it anything at all. The name is just a mirror; what matters is what it reflects.
Chit refers to being aware, to understanding or knowledge.
Ananda refers to bliss, pure happiness.
Sat-Chit-Ananda means something like: “being aware of your Being is bliss.”
Another way to put it, in 21st-century English rather than 4000-year-old Sanskrit, is how Dr. David R. Hawkins describes it:
“The way to God is through the joy of the present. And what is the joy of the present? The joy of the present is the full experience of the presence of the source of one’s creation.”
Throughout the day, by holding in mind “There is one life, and that I share with God.” I was telling my mind, “show me this.” And it has shown me in many ways:
There have been moments when I felt one with all the people and trees around me.
There have been moments when that joy simply appeared, capable of bringing a smile to my face throughout an entire exam.
There was a particularly beautiful moment, more difficult to describe. I’ll give it a try: it was at the end of my yoga class, lying on the floor with closed eyes. The person next to me, a young, strong, and serious man I usually coincide with, was silently crying. I felt love for him, knowing he was going through a very recent breakup. I guess the following vision occurred through that opening of the heart:
I remembered “There is one life, and that I share with God.” I then saw that I am not the body but the Life that inhabits, animates, and knows it for a period of time, until it no longer serves its purpose. I am not the bird’s body made of earth. I am the life that once entered that fertilized egg, that another day left that little winged body, and today continues to breath in Antonio.
I felt that I was that Life, entering my body and breathing life into every cell, illuminating with the light of consciousness every sensation, every emotion, every perception, every thought. I understood that the Life I am entered this body at some point shortly after conception and has known Antonio in every moment of his brief existence. It has been there, constant, untouched, and cosmic, in every illness, in every pain, in every fear, in every cry, in every laugh, in every dream, in every nap and meal, in every shower and swim in the sea, in every hug and kiss, in every moment of inspiration while painting or writing songs, in every significant decision made with 10 pounds of fear and 11 of courage.
That Life I am – and that I share with every living being – knows this beautiful Antonio to the last corner of his heart. And not only does it know him, but it has made him grow just as it makes roses grow from the stem. It is the force that propels him to continually develop towards his maximum potential, towards harmony and health.
I don’t know if you ever played The Sims or, better yet, with a Tamagotchi. Taking care of that little digital being makes you gradually grow fond of it. Imagine what that Life I speak of feels for you, who are its creation and has animated you in every moment of your existence.
A mother’s love pales in comparison, although it is its greatest reflection on this planet.
Your mother shared her life with you for 9 months, and that is enough to awaken an unconditional love that lasts a lifetime. This Life I speak of has accompanied you in every instant of your existence.
Your mother breastfed and nourished you for many years. This Life is the force that keeps your breath going.
Your mother is the channel through which you entered this world years ago. This Life is the source from which you sprouted then and from which you sprout now.
Today I received that gift: a glimpse of sat-chit-ananda, the joy of the present, being aware (to some extent) of the source of our creation, here and now, of the one and universal Life that animates us, and the infinite Love with which it does so.
Today, I wish you that joy and love. Today and always. It is your birthright.
A.
This week, pondering the theme of eternal life, this symphony came to me. It was composed by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen in 1916, amidst the First World War. Clearly, he was also contemplating this theme. He wrote this to his wife:
“I have an idea for a new composition, which has no programme but will express what we understand by the spirit of life or manifestations of life, that is: everything that moves, that wants to live … just life and motion, though varied – very varied – yet connected, and as if constantly on the move, in one big movement or stream. I must have a word or a short title to express this; that will be enough. I cannot quite explain what I want, but what I want is good.”
He eventually called it “The Inextinguishable,” and I’ll leave it here for you in case you feel like seeing another reflection of the same sun.
