In the broad world of spirituality, an old-new trend is emerging: the fashion of the “nobody.” Of course, being “nobody” can be exhilarating for a while – especially after perhaps a lifetime of being addicted to social norms, parental expectations, popular ideas and the general movement of adjusting the face and heart to suit the circumstances. But while we are in a body, the absolute truth of “nobody” doesn’t hold that long, and this creates a pressure.
The popular way to relieve this pressure is through the unifying realization that you are “everybody”. Everybody that you talk to, every form that you are able to perceive, every thundercloud and every vibration is part of you. Again – liberating. Again, at risk of falling into the trap of god-like narcissism. Because, even in the realization of the “Everybody” it is you – you at the eye of the storm – you at the heart of perception. Through the I am Everybody movement, the “other” can be reduced to a film image or a cartoon character in your own story book, and nothing beyond. In general, the “everybody” realization will only be able to give to the “other” that which the one that realizes is able to allow within his or her self. Often, this is very little.
Nisargadatta said: “Wisdom says I am nothing. The heart says I am everything. Between the two, my life flows.”
So here we are. We have wisdom at one polarity. The heart at the other polarity. We have the nothing – the great liberation of consciousness, and we have the everything – the great liberation of awareness. And then we have this “life” which is flowing between the two. A middle way.
Between the Nobody, who is Nothing, situated in Nowhere; and the Everybody, who is Everything, situated in the Everywhere – we have the blindingly obvious miracle of emptiness. Why is it not talked about too much? Partly because it confronts people with the very aspect they sought to escape through spirituality and meditation – the human aspect – the world of responsibility, emotions, feelings, and suffering, transient, individuality. This is a life that can’t be held as a concept or experience. This is the “Life” that flows between the two poles of all and nothing, space and time, consciousness and awareness – a life emanating out of existence, which brightens in the opening to the very possibility of non-existence.
In emptiness, the nobody and everybody duality disappears and what emerged is the starting point of every process – that challenge to be Somebody, Something, Somewhere.
Why would we hide from that? Why would we need to dose it, spiritualize it, transcend it, or vanish it?
When we move from the someone, to the noone, to the everyone, and back to the someone, what tends to arise is the suffering of love. This is the challenge of being authentically human. It is inseparable from the pain that this somebody will die, this something will dissipate, and this somewhere is only a relative perspective. Yet the challenge of being a non-absolute somebody – in all its glorious simplicity, is the true service of being here.
Someone cannot be held forever, it cannot be identified with, it defies attachment, and it cannot be fixed in time or space. Yet Someone is here – human in mind, heart and body. Human in consciousness, awareness and emptiness. Human in the relative and absolute service of being human.
This means allowance. Allowance of the pain, the love, the instinct, the illness, the fear, the trauma and the addictions (perhaps even the addiction to spirituality).
This means movement – the flow – of responsiveness and responsibility through the great web of interbeing. and responsibility for our brilliant minds in using the fallible garments of words and concepts to try to communicate the ineffable.
This means loyalty – loyalty to that source out of which the black, the white and the gray emerge – that which is the container of humanity itself – in every living second. That out of which all perception arises – that which is imperceivable as it cannot see itself, no matter how it arranges the mirrors.
This loyalty is the masterkey to a process that takes its own course through every particle of human perception in service to a unity which is greater even than our imagination.
