The Face of What Is

Consider the possibility that pure empty space is already conscious, creative, self- effulgent with healing light, overflowing with love, before you are even born into it! Therefor, all you need do is surrender to what is.

The first verse of the Bible explains in poetic Hebrew what physicists have discovered through science: this universe pours forth from a vacuum. Every moment the world is spoken like a Word from the silence of the void. "The earth was formless and void... Then God said, Let there be light." Empty space is spontaneously creative. All you have to do is not get in the way.

We realize the highest truth Now. In fact, we can only realize it in this Now. The beatific vision is always a revelation of what is already here in the present moment. And what is so wonderful about this present moment is not its content, but its Presence. This means that revelation can happen anywhere.

When we unconditionally surrender to the pure Presence that pervades everything, from the farthest galaxy to the atom at the tip of our eye lash, the essence of empty space reveals itself as the breathtakingly beautiful face of Christ, whose transcendental form radiates from the formless void like a sparkling sapphire. "The same God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, shining in the face of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4) A secret personal splendor dances in the fluctuations of the vacuum. The Indian devotee will recognize him as Krishna, the Westerner as Christ.

His countenance flashes forth in a silence no name can hold. It makes absolutely no difference what name you call him. What matters is to melt into the face of beauty, from whom the universe pours in a whisper, and toward whom our hearts are drawn as to a long-lost home.

No belief or practice is required. In fact, belief is what gets in our way, and doing separates us from Him whose gaze already burns from the heart of Now. "Abandon all your religious practices and just surrender to Me. I will deliver you. Don't worry!" (Bhagavad Gita, 18:66)

Too radically simple, isn't it? Humans can't stand this much simplicity. Our life is a ceaseless rebellion of the doer against the unendurable simplicity of what is. We want to do something to attain spirituality. The last thing we want is surrender, for surrender is letting go of all our efforts. Surrender cannot be done. It is a happening, and it usually happens when we have exhausted ourselves after several lifetimes of trying to achieve what always already is.

That is why Jesus prayed,"Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

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