The Background

    As you have seen in many parts of this site, Pure Silence, the simple awareness of the divine nothingness at the ground of our being at every moment is available to us 24/7/365. It is 24/7/365. It is the noticing of, or attending to the very background of all that is and that which is the absolute containing everything. This is consciousness itself. To be aware of this merely requires a conscious stopping of all the peripheral activity of mind and a naked intent (perhaps there's a better word) of our being itself realizing itself as Being, as Pure Silence. 

    There is a curious perceptive exercise you might relate to, to further simplify and perhaps concretize this in your mind. Have you ever looked into a clear night sky? When you first look attentively, the immediate thing you see is a panorama of stars and planets. Then your gaze tires somewhat and very naturally you are attracted to perhaps one unique light, one bright star and suddenly the rest of the sky has seemed to vanish while you are looking at that one star. Or perhaps your eyes follow one star to the next and to the next in a tiring pattern of trying to see everything at least once. Now try this. Look into the blackness of space itself, between the stars, what do you see? Yes, you see all the stars again and perhaps even some you were never aware of in the first place, stars and perhaps faint galactic clusters which appear only in your peripheral vision when you concentrate on nothing in particular. So instead of focusing on the particular. Your visual focus has gone to what is between all particulars and then you get a more perfect glimpse of the whole. I hope this makes sense, as the concept, although so simple, has far reaching implications.

    Another analogy can be that of listening to music. As you know, the greatest musical compositions contain many elements. There are the notes themselves, the melodies, harmonies, the various instruments, the lyrics, the rhythm, the intensity and the rests or breaks and stoppages in between everything else. If you just focus on picking out the lyrics of a song, your concentration is such that you do not hear much of the other things going on. Or perhaps you might be listening to a particular instrument, like the guitar solo. One cannot hear the whole song as it was meant to be heard unless there is a sort of attentive openness of listening to the whole. A simple way to do this is to listen for the silent parts, the rests, the stops themselves. In doing this, in focusing on the "nothing" in particular, the treasure is that you hear everything.

    So in a sense, by turning the very attention of our whole being to the void, the nothingness, the background of the silence itself, a miracle happens. We begin to see and experience everything as it is right now, in truth and in absolute wonder. And there are no limits to this because the Pure Silence of being is limitless and the peace of mind, the freedom that is the result of this realization that you are merely a part of the background is infinity itself, because the background has no beginning and no end and neither do you. You are the background. Live there and see the joy that explodes from you.

Happiness always!

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