True meditation is about waking up from the dream of separation to the truth of unity . . . awakening to the realization of what you and everything actually is, the oneness of all. To perceive everything as one is not an altered state of consciousness; it's an unaltered state of consciousness, the natural state of consciousness. Enlightenment is the natural state, the innocent state which is uncontaminated by control or manipulation of mind. We wake up by allowing ourselves to rest in the natural state from the very beginning . . . by "allowing everything to be as it is."
In the frozen fields of my life
there are no shortcuts to spring,
but stories of great birds in migration
carrying small ones on their backs,
predators flying next to warblers
they would, in a different season, eat.
Stunned by the astonishing mix in this uneasy world
that plunges in a single day from despair
to hope and back again, I commend my life
to Ruskin's difficult duty of delight,
and to that most beautiful form of courage,
to be happy.