Just as a caterpillar doesn’t know it can fly until it experiences its own metamorphosis, most human beings are not sure of their Divinity. They doubt it, unless they are offered a moment of grace where life is experienced in an entirely different way from the habitual waking state reality. A distinct experience of a different dimension often helps us confirm what we may have hoped for or suspected for the bigger part of our lives: that there truly is more to us than what we see in the mirror, or what the world around us is telling us.
Most everybody has had such a moment at some point in their lives. It may have occurred during a breathtaking instant in nature, while experiencing the ecstasy of being in love, at the sight of a newborn baby or even during an accident, when time seems to stand still: The common denominator of such an experience is that the sky seems to open, the usual sensory perceptions appear as extremely heightened or even suspended - and only infinite peace, beauty and stillness remain. Most of the time these glimpses of a different reality are fleeting. They last for a short moment and then we fall back into the habitual human perception of everyday life.
Even though it may have been just a glimpse, something inside gets transformed irrevocably. To touch the space inside that is eternal and infinite leaves a mark in our consciousness. We are reminded of who we truly are: A Divine Being living in a human form for a time. Situations like these are Life’s gifts to help us remember our True Nature and to inspire us to cultivate and live that knowledge.
The normal waking state however doesn’t allow us to live the knowledge of our True Nature. The constant chatter of our minds and the ongoing perception of things and forms are covering the state of unchanging peace that is at the back of all our human experiences. If we want to live a different dimension, we need to cultivate a different state of being, a state that is not rooted in the activities of the mind.
That is what Meditation offers: In simply closing our eyes, we enter a different dimension. We notice that the chatter of the thoughts may still rise and fall like waves in the ocean - yet the ocean itself, the infinite water, is not affected by the waves, movement or objects moving in it. Ocean water remains ocean water, whether is is placid or whether it is churned by a storm. In the same way, we notice that with eyes closed, we are witnessing the coming and going of thoughts, but as the Watcher or Knower, we are not affected by the thoughts or their movement. Once we realize that we Are that Watcher, the thoughts become nothing more than innocuous flow of movement. We notice that our True Identity as that Knower is free from the thoughts and their content. Through practice, our identification shifts from believing that we are the thoughts to knowing ourselves as the Knower, forever Free and Blissful. Thus Meditation reveals that the Knower is infinite, pure and never ever separate from its Divinity - it reminds the caterpillar in us that we are, always have been and always will be Butterflies that fly free...