This earth and her inhabitants, the planets and stars, the appearance of space and time, of matter, both dark and visible, energy from zero point to the most concentrated, all that has been discovered and has yet to be—the universe in her completeness; the cosmos in her orderliness; the unknown in her mystery—is the body of God.  

I use the word ‘God’ loosely. Having been raised with church definitions, none of which satisfied this curious mind, I have moved beyond—infinitely beyond—ideas of a being, long white hair and beard, who holds us in his hands and offers us the world if we believe the right way … or will throw us into the pits of hell if we dare screw up. What a guy that one was! He was the God made in man’s image, not man as he actually is, but man smothered in beliefs and concepts that suck the ever-living breath from the aliveness, the sacred temple, the body human, the body of God.

There’s a reason this world has flipped the story, has made the body something inherently bad, something to be shed of, something to overcome, to improve, to diminish its desires and wants. It feeds the story of unworthiness, the idea that the very nature of being human is shackled with a large helping of not okayness … and that something someone outside of you has the key to making it all right. It keeps us on the hamster wheel, ties us to the self-improvement train track. The more we squirm the tighter the rope gets. It makes the world of separation feel real and that’s necessary to our consciously or unconsciously, mutually agreed upon, lived Monopoly board experience.

Years back, I think it was Gangaji who said, (and I paraphrase liberally) if you want something, get it before you wake up, because after you do, you won’t care. For years I thought that not caring would be fabulous. A higher, more pure experience would take precedence over the old and worn, ever so normal ordinary life. It was sort of a get out of jail free card.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Sometimes we tire of circling the board, not from anything we’ve done, nothing earned or as part of the reward and punishment loop. It’s just how the game plays out. We are given to see what this is, to realize that life is life-ing itself. We recognize that while we appear to be doing, to be choosing, to be the actors, the verbs in our lives, it ain’t so. Well … it is, and it isn’t. How fun!

I am the experiencer, experiencing life as and through the diecast Scotty dog, the race car, the top hat. With the roll of the dice, my little race car flies around the board, going broke, going directly to jail. She may even buy a hotel or appear to win the game. But the mostly hidden small print in the rule book is that this I am that I am, is not what she seems to be. She was never the race car, but that race car was essential to the game.  

So many gurus make it seem like this seeing is special, that it is sacred, rare. It makes the remedy easier to sell. To tell the truth would be to end the business of spirituality. This seeing is available to all, at any time, with every experience, and it’s always right here, right now even when we see what appears to be something totally different.

When we see through the eyes of separation, how could we not see separation? The reason for practices, for techniques is not to pay for the privilege of entry, to purify your mind, or to make you worthy. You are already here. You are already clean and clear. You have never been unworthy. We practice to see through what we believe we know, to unlearn all that we have been taught and accepted, to emptily open our eyes and see what has always been right in front of us.

The only things that prevents us from seeing are the ideas that: I am this me; this is not This; whatever this I seek IS it is somehow special, definitely different than this; seeing is a rarity reserved for those who have given their lives to awakening, to those who are not me.

Hogwash.

This is the body of God. You are the body of God. Right now you are riding along in the top hat, the thimble, the penguin, thinking that’s you, but it’s not. That master and mistress of sensation, whether masculine, feminine or a mix, whether straight or any of the many letters, or somewhere in-between, whether red or blue, rich or poor, a top hat, a thimble, a race car, is a BEhicle of experiencing, and it’s magnificent, a mind-boggling mystery. It’s not what you believe, what you’ve been sold. It was never unworthy, nor were you or could you be. That little top hat doesn’t need anything, not even another turn around the board, to live another day, a year, or a decade or two.   

If you care to see, if this sort of experience pulls you, and perhaps more importantly, if you can, slow down. From that slowed down viewpoint, take a close look. Give your certainty a day off and let life be uncertain, innocent and free to be whatever it is. Curiosity is the teacher. The body is our guide, sensations our guru. Everything we’ve ever genuinely wanted is within us.