Not one

In an absolute paradox (pardon the pun :-)), oneness lives in the way of not one.

As soon as the ego tries to define us as someone, something much bigger than ego knows that it is not that one. It is not any one - not this one and not that one - not any particular one.

To read about this without having experienced it can be confusing. And experiencing it can be disorienting to the mind. The mind seeks certainty and likes to be someone - someone particular - someone predictable who can be described and defined in a specific way. Until it doesn't.

And then there is that inbetween place, when something here can no longer really believe in the story of being someone particular. Still there can be a sort of half-hearted believing for a while. But rest assured this belief is very surely on its way out. And sooner rather than later that belief evaporates.

However, during this experience it seems like life around us continues on pretty much as before, and we still find ourselves amidst the same or similar situations as before. But now there is no particular someone dealing with those situations. Instead there is an openness that can still hear and see what is going on.

This is what is disorienting to mind. It doesn't know how to deal with life without being someone. So it may keep attempting to settle into being someone and reacting to what is happening as that someone. But it cannot really sustain that act for very long. So right in the middle of being someone, the belief in someone may just vanish and the openness may be revealed again.

This can be quite funny. We may find ourselves arguing a point (as someone) and then suddenly all interest in our own argument disappears and we are left holding nothing and feeling a little silly, and no doubt looking a lot sillier! :-)

That this could happen sometimes - that mind could try to be someone - that isn't a problem. It pretends for a while and then it can't anymore. Without any interference from us, the drama simply passes.

However we may be tempted to interfere. All our interference is from the mind, and it can take the form of thoughts believed - thoughts like:

I shouldn't be shaken from the openness
I am still not really enlightened enough
I should not look silly
etc.

None of these are true. But if believed in, they simply contract us again. So instead we can simply relax into what is happening, even if we are being someone again, or being silly or 'unspiritual'.

In this openness there is no attachment to being any one way, no attachment to appearing any one way. There is simply the freedom to be and the freedom to appear as any one. We are life responding to life and we are flexible.

This last statement seems contradictory? It is certainly paradoxical. For somehow, in a mysterious way, this openness that we are is no-one specific and yet can appear as specific things, without being confined to any one of them, without being defined as any one of them.

And we find out the truth of how this works right where we are, as life unfolds.

This body doesn't suddenly evaporate. This life experience isn't suddenly blanked out. The facts of our life don't change. We continue to look the same and sound the same and appear the same (atleast on the outside). But there is no one left here who needs to hang on to any one appearance.

So we are free - free to be what the moment demands of us - free to be the flow of life in this moment, as this moment.

We are free to be new and fresh. And there is no need to know in advance how to be.

By means unknown we are the unknown appearing as the known. What could be more amazing!