CHAPTER ONE
The "Bright"
"I saw that Reality was always already (and, therefore, always presently) Full..."
Whenever I have turned from the True Center of present-time life-consciousness to one or another kind of seeking motivated in the desires of my complex life, I have been brought to the same recognition: The search is suffering.
When, for example, I felt the loss of the little animal I loved, I was moved to find her, to be where that love continued as is. So I was motivated to a drastic ascent from life, to what (because of my separated mentality) seemed to be God.
But, at last, I saw that the motive toward re-union was itself the source and act of separation, and that it was itself a destructive cutting away of Free Awareness, Love-Bliss-Energy, and Life.
In the hours of waiting for death, I was not Awake as the "Bright", the Full Presence of my Being. I was separate from the "Bright", and saw all Love and Light and Freedom of Being as utterly above, apart from me and this world. Only too late, it seemed to me then, did the shock of what I awaited draw me into that Fullness again.
And I saw that Reality was always already (and, therefore, always presently) Full, and that to seek that Fullness in the symbolic state I was awaiting was to abandon (or to not presume and Enjoy) that always present Fullness in the actual present moment.
I learned (or even re-learned) this Great Lesson at that time. It is not merely the product of reflection years hence. Originally, and (but decreasingly) as a small boy, I operated with that Clarity and Enjoyed (even in my humanly-born form and conscious awareness) the Knowledge of Real (or Ultimate, or Truly Divine) Consciousness.
The search itself has never been my fundamental Vocation. The search was only a curious excursion.
It was temporarily necessary (because of my born association with the functions and tendencies of a living human body-mind), but (because of the always underlying Foundation that is the "Bright") it was also only a means of reaffirmation of Reality Itself in the context of my humanly-born conscious awareness.
Therefore, all of my life, Reality Itself, Spiritually "Bright" and Full, has been the Fundamental Circumstance of my living existence.
My earliest childhood (from birth), and not merely some later (or more adult) time, was the period of my first Knowledge and Unfoldment of the "Bright", Which I Knew to be the perfect Form (and the Source of the living condition) of Reality.
And what is That exactly? This book is determined to Communicate It, again and again, in so many ways. But, on the level of my earliest recognition of It, It was the "ordinary" Condition of even my humanly born conscious awareness. It was Consciousness Itself, Radiant and Awake.
It was my simple (human and Ultimate) State, Prior to even any experience. It was not mysterious or awesome to me. There was no shadow, nothing hidden in It. It was not motivated to seek any end at all.
There was no "beyond", no "outside", no "Other". It had no sense of time. Nor had It yet begun to feel any kind of confusion or identity with existence as separated personality and problematic experience. It was the Center of the life-functions, but without dilemma or unconsciousness.
There were no divisions in It. Radiant Spiritual Energy was Communicated within It, and, thus, in and via the entire body-mind. There was Joy in the body, a Luminous cell-life, a constant respiration and circulation of Love-Bliss-Energy and unlimited, boundless Pleasure.
There was a Spiritual Current of Energy in the heart that rose into the head through the throat. And that same Spiritual Current of Energy was below the heart, rising up into it from below. There was a surrounding Circle of Spiritual Energy that was spaceless and boundless, but Which had a formless Locus above the head.
And all of this moving Energy Originated as a single Spiritual Source-Current of Light and Life in the heart that was reflected and Felt at a pervasive Center deep within the head. There was a constant Radiation of this entire Form, including the body.
It was Joy in the heart, reflected as Enjoyment in the head. And that formless, spaceless Form of Consciousness was "Bright", Silent, Full — Knowing only and entirely this Condition, this Reality, and seeing no problem, no separation, in the fact of life.
This "Bright", this Real Consciousness, is the perfect Form (and the Source of the living condition) of Reality, and It is never undone. It is now, and It is you. Now and always, every living being is arising within and as this Form, Which is the very Form of life.
It is only that life is not lived as Real Consciousness. It is confused with some experience, some fragment of Energy in the event of the personality, in the functions that operate by laws subconscious and unconscious to the individual, or some wave of Energy that fascinates the individual in the superconscious patterns above.
When such confusions of identity overwhelm and distract one into some division of the living structure of Reality, one is moved to great seeking in the alternatives of life.
Every course that is not simply the demonstration of Real Consciousness, direct and present, is a schism in one's living form. The excursions of my life beyond childhood showed this all the more to me.
