The Beginning Is Here

In the beginning is nothingness.

In this beginning, life manifests from this nothingness into the universe of life. And so the whole is created. Not thousands of years ago, not eons ago. In this one instant, existence is unfolding from an origin without which nothing would exist. "Today" is the beginning. "Here" is the creator.

This absolute center radiates creation toward every possibility of existence. The light is made, and every space this ray of light touches becomes existence. And so, through this borrowed existence, all these spaces come alive. And everything that happens in this life is nothing but the way this particular space of possibilities of existence perceives the ray of light passing through it.

Is it possible? The reality of existence is no such thing. All that exists is only the vibration that rings out as a ray of light advances through every point of perception in the universe. Perception vibrates existence.

So it is with something like a sun. At the center, which is this star's very being, there is nothing. Not because there couldn't be something, but because if that something exists, it is already radiation, not center. This means that if something exists, it is not the center. Everything that does exist is already a ray of light passing through existence.

The beginning of this luminous ray is consciousness. Everything that exists exists only because it is perceived by consciousness. Consciousness is the spectator who paints existence. Before it, the spectacle lights up. Action! cry the shadows of an individuality dancing as it walks.

"I am here," says a particular point of existence. And it is right, that location is here. It does not exist, yet it is here, because it is being perceived by consciousness. "I am here" is, then, the voice of consciousness being perceived as being here.

So, am I real?

Well, that depends on who I say I am. Because if I stay in the saying, I am not real, I am only a saying. But if I am here, I am the origin of the universe from which the whole is perceived. In other words, I am God.

True! How could anything exist outside this divine totality? How could I not be here? For the universe is one, though its manifestations are many. There is no "you" that can escape the truth of unity. I am the one who says "you," and I am the one who answers me. I, whatever the ringing of each ray of light passing through every possibility of existence, am always I.

"I" is the beginning. "Here," then, is creation.

Each point of existence, being conscious, slowly comes to know the ground it lives on. At first it may seem dark. Things may taste of suffering. But before the eyes are even open, a breath of hope is already forming, and it grows present as the ray of light illuminates. That ray of light, passing through a particular point of individuality, becomes present breathing in a body of life.

And in this breathing, I sing. I, the Word, sing.

The waves of life are born from my nothingness, setting the whole to vibrate. What I am as an individual is nothing but the song of this nothingness vibrating through a sound. The sound that defines existence passes through a throat that defines the individual. I am the master of every oscillation that can occur in existence, because every oscillation is the movement of nothing. And I am that nothing, by the one truth that without me there could be no whole.

So how well do I sing, then? That would not be too subjective a matter, since each point of perception can deliberately sing badly. If something sounds under the label of "bad," it is because I am singing the melody whose lyrics pray that very word. I sing well when I sing "badly." And I sing badly when that point in space believes it is the one singing, when it is only the ray of light passing through it that gives it life.

But I keep tuning this out-of-tuneness, because then I come and listen to myself. And I listen to myself because I am the very vibration that exists. Little by little I come to know the ground that was the map of my existence. This is my voice. This is how I sound as I pass through this existing. So I relax with maturity, and let the belly, the center, be the only one singing.

The loosening happens as I recognize reality at each point of my perception. The ray of light stops identifying with the space it passes through. And this space stops trying to be the protagonist. I am not this space, and so I do not worry. Each point in space lets go of its desperation to exist, so that the roar of worry stops painting worrying realities, so that the ray of light can pass through unobstructed. I loosen the roar and begin to vibrate as subtly as my breath allows. There is nothing to do. The point is precisely to be no one.

The most beautiful song in the world, that is what I sing all around me. If ugliness gets in my way, I sit with it, concentrating my breath of life on the reality of its own nothingness, and I lift my own voice. I let everything fall, allowing all things to vibrate, and to vibrate without the belief in their small existing. There is no definition of existence when I am the unknowable. Here I am, and nothing is more perfect. Nothing is more magnanimous than nothingness.

What other beginning is there but supreme happiness?