Seeing the Hidden Picture

The most amazing thing about deep spiritual connection is that it’s always the same experience, no matter what you call it. Whether you follow Jesus, Vishnu or the Buddha. Whether you believe in God, or not. It really makes no difference-- because if you drill down to the root experience promised by every faith or spiritual tradition, by every type of mysticism or meditation, it’s invariably the same experience. It’s not a thought. Not a feeling. Rather, it’s an awareness— a knowing—that is physiological, rather than psychological.

It lies beneath thought and feeling... a faint whisper that gently tickles the parasympathetic nervous system. And the whisper is always the same: “You Belong”. And with belonging, of course, comes affirmation of our other core human desires; you are Known, you are Worthy, you are both Loving and Lovable. But none of this can be conceptualized, or grokked. It must be experienced. A true relationship with God-- or with Life, or Love, if you prefer-- is always experiential.

The wonderful and mystical reality is that once heart & mind are sublimated and pure awareness is experienced, the thoughts and feelings that wash back into our system are colored by that awareness. We reflexively become more loving and lovable. We feel more comfortable in our own skin. The space between our thoughts and feelings expands.

That's why it’s also so damn hard. Like trying to hold a river. Or trying to not think of an elephant. Since it can neither be grasped by the heart nor discovered by the intellect, the spirit can be truly experienced only when those things are removed from the equation. The wonderful and mystical reality is that once heart & mind are sublimated and pure awareness is experienced, the thoughts and feelings that wash back into our system are colored by that awareness. We reflexively become more loving and lovable. We feel more comfortable in our own skin. The space between our thoughts and feelings expands.

Buddhists might call this ‘bodhi’, while Hindus refer to it as ‘moksha’. Some yogis refer to it as ‘absorption.’ For me, it is the clearest encapsulation of what I’d call Christian Grace. Something that cannot be earned or acquired, merely received. It is utterly paradoxical, which is how we know that it is both transcendent and true. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is one great explanation of this concept of non-duality. It is only attainable in brief glimpses in this life, because our world is the very essence of duality. Life or death. Black or white. This or that. All enlightenment stems from replacing “either-or” with “both-and” as a frame for observing the natural world. So how does one simultaneously engage in effort and surrender? That is the ultimate question.

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We have an activity book which contains one of those hidden picture puzzles. It looks like a bunch of random, squiggly red lines, but within those lines lies a hidden image of a sailboat. There’s no way to make yourself see the sailboat. You know it’s there-- and you really want to see it-- but the more you strain the more frustrating it becomes. Yet somehow, at some point, the picture just swims into focus. You see it only through a combination of effort and surrender. It just reveals itself to you, not because you tried hard or deserved to see it, but merely because you were looking in the right direction when something inside of you shifted.

My daughter was about five or six when she found the book lying open on the dining room table. My wife and I, as well as the older kids, had stared at it for varying lengths of time before having our ‘a-ha’ moments and spotting the sailboat. But the little one just could not see it. She strained and stared. She yelled at the page. She accused us of lying about the sailboat even existing. Ultimately, she left the table in a tearful rage. There was no way for us to console her, because there was no way we could’ve given her what she wanted: the ability to see the sailboat. We could show her mercy, by encouraging and soothing her, and trying to point out the lines of the boat. But it wasn’t mercy she was after. It was grace. It was the experience.

All enlightenment stems from replacing “either-or” with “both-and” as a frame for observing the natural world. So how does one simultaneously engage in effort and surrender? That is the ultimate question.

The painful reality is that grace doesn’t appear on our schedules… and sometimes it doesn’t appear at all. This can be devastating, because we all so desperately want to see the sailboat. We want to experience it. We’ll sit in front of the picture for hours. We’ll relax our eyes. We’ll stare intently. We’ll read any book or watch any YouTube tutorial, or listen to our friends describe how they see the boat in granular detail. But none of it will help.

We cannot think the boat or feel the boat. All we can do is muster the faith to keep checking the picture periodically, with the hope that someday the boat reveals itself to us, too. This is what’s called a faith practice, just like prayer or meditation. You set aside some time here and there to focus on the picture, to make space for grace. It is an act of humility and surrender, as well as a commitment to practice.

These glimpses of sailboat are few and far between, in my experience. It took me forty years of life until I had my first one, and although I’ve had a few more since they are temporal in nature and do not remain, undimmed, for very long. There are quite a few people who’ve had such glimpses, in all different walks of life. There are even more who haven’t. But what I can tell you with assurance, based on my own limited experience, is what I believe you will hear from anyone who’s had a spiritual experience, should you take the time to ask them:

You Belong.