The Nectar Within

Drinking cold orange juice squeezed from a backyard tree is a rare treat in this world. In that moment, life is beautiful. Then a post appears on Facebook. It’s the ultimate cosmos photo taken from the Hubble Telescope in deep space. Millions of galaxies with billions of planets spinning around appearing like tiny specks in the darkness – and where are we? Where is Earth? Oh, we can’t see it. It’s too small.

The planet is small and we are even smaller. Yet, the saints, messengers of the Creator, arrive here to remind us of our soul-stature, to love us and to show us how to love. All the while, the memories of our true Home have been erased. Who are we and where have we come from? The Creator and the saints know and teach us the meditation of Nam. The saints hold our lives like limp balloons and inflate us with their breath of love. While duality spins around us, they hold us in the eye of the storm, protecting us as a mother cherishes her newborn child.

Is this existence real? Well, it’s the story of a rose with soft petals above and stinging thorns below – while the bouquet of scented blossoms fills the air. It hasn’t always been this way. In the Golden and Silver Ages, life here was exquisite with no worries or cares. Now we have gravitated to the Iron Age where greed and anger prevail and man feeds from the slough of despair. Truly though, this is the best of times because now the saints have entered the realm. Their mission is to ring the eternal bell within us to remind us of our long-ago origins.

Human life is the gift of the Creator to shape us into a substance that can feel love and, at the same time, endure the pain that separation from that love creates. He has given us the chance to dive into Experience with no memory of our regal past. From an ocean of Sound, we are now a crashing wave on the shore of life. From Oneness we experience duality. Eventually, we discover that duality is lacking and Oneness is once more treasured. Inside these bodies hides our Creator, our Shabd-dhun and the entire creation – a creation so vast that no mind can envision its entirety. When we peek into the stillness of the eye, the Creator reveals the true tale. We begin to remember. We go and we go. Until one day, we go no more.

Rumi says, “Our journey is to the rose garden of union.”¹

The true disciple is thankful for this wonderful experience, O Lord. His heart is filled with gratitude as he gazes through the ages of his earthly lives. Turning now, he glances homeward to you. The journey of reunion has begun.