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When Buddhists speak of wakefulness, this is meant - conscious intimacy with the uncreate Absolute through intimacy with created forms flowing out of Spirit, and vice versa. Waking up means, not a retreat from the world, but coming into spontaneous, conscious closeness with it. So, after receiving awakening under the Bodhi tree, the story of the Buddha has him touching the ground and saying, "Earth is my witness." Yes, where does Earth end and you begin?
Yet, how do we see the Unity? The self, the little 'i', the ego, cannot awaken itself. The self cannot see the Unity-of-All. Rather, the True Self, the Soul, sees. The Self, the spirit-within, not the person, does this, for the Soul by nature is welcoming, and this welcoming is the One embracing all within Itself.
Jean Klein, in I Am -
Every single thing is seen in the light of this welcoming, appears and disappears within it. As a result, things attain their full significance and harmony reestablishes itself. This welcoming is an alert awareness, uninhabited by the past. It allows whatever presents itself to unfold in and point to the welcoming, without being limited by the ego or deformed by memory.
Hence, Love does not strive for unity. The person strives for unity. Love is the Unity. Love cannot, then, strive for Itself. When we awaken spiritually, drawn into Love by Love, we see, we welcome effortlessly. An awakened being does not try to love anyone, she does not need to - she loves. This loving is the welcoming.
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In the Harmony, one no longer experiences the forms of Life as merely objects, but as sharing in the same being-subject oneself is being. Hence, finally, in God, there are no objects and no subjects, only one subject in the Communion with Itself - all loving is God loving.... In the relative sense, we are each a subject in relationship with other subjects, but the one Subject, the Absolute, manifests in diversity to share with Itself.
Hence, this Communion begins outside time-space. It is boundless. One does not have to be in physical proximity to anyone for this Communion to be happening. Likewise, one may experience this Communion with beings who are no longer in the physical body, for forms are within the Absolute, and Being is not limited by time and place, seeing time and place are within and from Being. Therefore, we are already, always, what Thomas Merton saw in Louisville.
Regardless of our choice to share consciously in this Communion, Communion happens. Spirit is not dependent on us. Therefore, you and I cannot be outside Communion, yet we can be asleep to It and, even, reject It is our actual, natural estate. If we do not choose to awaken to this Unity, we miss the joy of the heart-with-heart sharing.
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