You are equal to reality

People scour out spirituality and other esoteric disciplines to find the deepest truths about humanity and human nature.

In doing so it’s easy to feel like a novice at the gate of the great unknown.

And yet the material for a full understanding of the human condition is latent inside each human being—an open book for inquiry. Why would it be otherwise? Whatever profundity or mundanity is at play, we should expect to find it present in each and every person. Whatever divine scheme is afoot, we are already participating in it, right now.

Most people are not thrilled about this. That’s because “full understanding” means the light and the dark. You have complete access to the best and worst of humanity in your heart, the splendour and degradation. And wisdom comes from a reckoning with both halves. As Solzhenitsyn wrote, “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

Deeper than this is a sense that we’re not equal to reality—not able to know it directly—and that we need someone to mediate it to us. A distrust in our own perception. This has both religious and secular roots.

Contemplative life turns this upside down. It cuts through both the secular distrust in our senses and the religious belief in separation from the divine and points to our direct participation in the totality of reality, right now.

There’s no greater adventure for those willing to embark upon it.