Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

(Rumi)

Time is a fiction we create, as we discover what life is all about. As we traverse our imaginary journey, as we seek to understand our existence, as we hunger for the whole, we maintain a conversation, reverberating monologues in the myriad mirrors of Being, to reflect light in all possibilities of color and brightness.

This conversation effervesces from birth, as an urge to embrace our subtle instruments of silence and word, as we react to this solitude of many, that masks the singularity of our Being, of Existence.

With the evolution of language, we have recorded and recounted our passing, conversing about past times and relationships, describing what we see outside, and felt inside. Through words, songs, and poems, the human pharynx, and the opposing thumb, became instruments of the Universe to converse in all manners of expression; to exchange awe in all manners of perception.

Every story was preserved in scrolls, books, art, traditions, and myths. Symbols and culture passed on, in a never-ending information current, to each regenerating pulse of life, as its streams advanced in a consciousness flow. Today, the awe of our external manipulations competes with the awe of our surrounding presence, and our inner depths. We have become enamored of our conversational skills and forgotten the object of our conversation; the joy and amazement of being.

We must pause one moment with our business plans, stop ticking for one instant, and just see. Can you feel your three hundred trillion cells buzzing inside, churning all those processes required to express your consciousness and form?

Can you hear the rhythm of your breathing, your heartbeats thumping inside, as you eavesdrop on the noises around, the beat that links all, the aromas of the surround, the flavors that titillate your tongue, the caresses of the breeze and of your loved ones, as they gently sediment on your skin, and envelop you in love?

Just think about the past collection of gyres danced by the planet, as it did its merry-go-round around the light source that gives it its life, as it joy-circled, the warmth that shone the colors, gave the life, moved the winds, and circulated its liquids so suave.

Reflect for an instant, on every thought you had on every smile and tear, on every encounter with another point of human consciousness, looking at you through his/her eyes. Remember the embraces shared, the notes compared, the dreams envisioned, the misunderstandings and fragmentations, the compassion, the forgiveness, the weaknesses of falling, the hands that always come to help.

Yes, here we are again, like yesterday and tomorrow; blessed by the fact of Existence the Beautiful. Harnessed by our mental and body constructs, that enables this individuality sublime in its darkness and light. The gradient of spices that gives us the ability to differentiate into so many tones and hues, so many words and nuances of feeling. What a joy, what gifts untold are given by the forces that create this rhythm, this story forever told, through you and me. Us.

I was pondering about this, as another year ended, in the long collection of years witnessed through my life. Thinking about the rhythm of life as an expression of Existence.

The cosmos provides the setting, so majestic, that nobody can really understand. Our cells coordinate the body, our bodies orchestrate life and consciousness, so, we can sing in science and desperation, in euphoria and depression, as we seek, love, lose, gain. We are lost and we are found. We live. I thought, what a cosmic surprise this is! What a plight! What a delight!

This mellow feeling, as my body fades and becomes lighter in weight, and more intense in sensing the inner. Remembrance is subdued now. There is nothing to know outside. Everything just flows. There is more appreciation of the beauty deep within. The calling out loud for attention has softened.

Now oceans are still, no matter the roaring waves, and storms are calm, even when raging. Tropics are subdued. There is a quiet remembrance of things including those that have never been.

Now I take more imaginary walks, where only the voices of the wind distort the silence, and see gardens blooming in seeming apocalypses, and hearts alive in feelings and whirlwinds.

Throughout my life there was always an expectation when meeting another person, a stranger or a most intimate one. Always anticipation, in relationship to my ego and id. That is the way I felt with respect to the different situations of encountering others, be extras, or main characters in my life-play.

But there were also totally unexpected, and unanticipated transforming moments, which are still a mystery to me and will always be. Like how did I end up climbing that hill in Meherabad? Near the village of Arangaon, one of the innumerable villages of India. Located near the city of Ahmednagar, in the state of Maharashtra.

On the top of a hill in the middle of the countryside there was a small tomb, in that nation with so many tombs. A sign near its entrance read: “Real things are always given and received in Silence.” Meher Baba And it led me to start talking to myself, looking for that Silence.

I imagined, that since I was already being imagined by Existence, that I was talking to her who imagined me. Kind of confusing I know but had to try.

I was puzzled, yet happy to initiate conversation with her, who I felt was my real Self. Sensing that she/he is always around anyhow. So, I said to myself; look, you appeared out of the blue, when I was extremely confused, believing I was this or that, asserting this or that point of view, scared of losing boundaries, comparing myself with a multitude of similar packages that always surrounded me, some of whom I tried to approach, encroach, possess, love and challenge in so many interactions.

Then, you appeared out of nowhere and said in silence: “you and I are not we but One.” Hey, what do you mean? I thought, as I dissolved. Then you went through some silent explanations, that paralyzed the usual thought rhythm and brought about a heart-felt rhyme.

You used metaphors to tell that Existence is just One Being made of love, and that love is a flow, and that the flow needs separation, but since One is One, Existence sort of dreams itself into many selves, to flow, to be lost and found in imagination.

And that this “I”, meaning this “me”, who is really you, is just a figment of your imagination. Really an inseparable totality because there is nothing else but this One and its dream…

Music started to play in my brain, as I continued this strange dialog/monolog between two who are supposed to be One. (While at the same time aware of time and multitudes, and body urgings, and the three dimensions craving for my senses to describe them, imbibe them, admire them, ignore them or be in awe) Yes, yes, I get it, I said -but how do I get to know that, how do I arrive at that awareness of One, while being one of many? When is it, that, whatever I am, individuality, personality, atman, drop, soul, human being, ego, with all its definitions, thoughts desires etc., is supposed to finish this role in the already manifested script and return to being you, me, One? Because it seems to me futile, to insist and pray and meditate and strain and do yoga and hocus pocus and whatever, to accelerate whatever your imagination has already established as the figment’s path. Isn’t it?

You silently answered “Love, through love, you will find that I am you, that we are all One.”

So, I said, tell me what this love is, is it something I can acquire? You say it is all around, that it is you, but obviously if your dream is still on, it means that you want to dream. And I am a character in your dream, which I must be dreaming also, if I am you. But then, isn't this present conversation between us weird?

As I ended my monologue, I said I must move along with the daily day, as from what you say there is no escape from this, concluding without knowing, that since you are the only One, you and I are it!

I said to you while talking to myself. I am beginning to like you, even if I do not understand at all what you say, but the story that you tell, and this opportunity to talk to myself like this, makes me happy somehow. You are becoming a good Friend.

Our voices in ignorance, spilling in never-ending stories, arms unfurled, in pain and embrace. Our minds, prisoners of day to day, manifesting ideologies through small mouths, reflecting on trifles and fears about nothing. Meanwhile, poetry floods the one rhythm of the universe, and light in the eyes, heralds everything. Everything.

You and I are not we but one.

(Meher Baba)