An Analogy

Imagine that for the longest time you get fixated on objects illuminated by the sun. How interesting! Or how terrible! When each object is illuminated, you get caught up in this one. Then that one. Then that one…

Imagine that one day you became interested in where this illumination comes from. At which point, you’d start to see each object as pointing back to sunbeams and, little by little, you’d start to abide with these emanations.

Then imagine what would happen were you to be all absorbed in the incipient manifestation of the sunbeam. You’d effectively feel that you were surrounded on all sides by the light of the sun. Could you see anything apart from the light? No. Surrounded by light, soon you’d be pervaded by light.

And then you’d realize that you were not the light but the sun itself.

Turning Back Around

Getting fixated on objects is, in this analogy, equivalent to bondage.

Turning back around and being interested in the source of light refers to the beginning of self-inquiry; it means, in essence, getting acquainted with I Am.

Abidance in I Am is like being pervaded by the light of the sun. When there is complete pervasion, this is Self-realization.

Game Over

We can call “game over” the “state” in which one is completely abiding in I Am. Then just as being so close to the sun signifies that one must be “burned up” in the sun, so I Am, being near the Absolute, must naturally, automatically return to the Absolute.