My teacher once heartily laughing pointed to me that we don’t eat, or rather, we can’t really eat “chicken” or “duck” or “beef”. If you are not familiar with the mind you will definitely be perplexed by what he said. On the same note, you can’t touch the floor. Nor can you see a “man”, a “woman”, a “dog” or anything with a name attached to it for that matter. Confused?
You can have a direct realization on this subject by trying out a series of experiment. Close your eyes and let your hand feel the objects around you. Observe how each object that comes into contact with your touch has a name accompanying it. For example, you may touch a pencil, a keyboard, a remote control, the table, etc – bearing in mind that you can’t touch the meaning of those object. Then advance further by touching more objects where you may not be familiar with – potentially you may not have those kind of object around you at this moment. But give yourself a moment to ponder upon this – when you touch an object that you are totally not familiar with, will you know what that object is, with your eyes closed? You will not. You can only able to touch the texture, the hardness, the sensation – in brief, basic nature of that object. Touch function is all that is – that touch does not have a name of that object.
Hence, when you touch the so-called floor, that meaning “floor” is not what your touch can do for you. That meaning is a separate function given by perception. You either only touch hard or soft – you don’t touch “floor”. At that point of of experience what you experienced is touch+meaning, or more accurately touch+perception. If until now you get where I am leading you, you will start to realize what it means by thoughts make projections real. When you see what your legs are touching on, the meaning “floor” is not “out there” underneath your foot. It has never left the consciousness where that idea came from – it remains in the consciousness as a momentary thought – but you don’t realize that in your daily seeing. Your thought projects it out and makes you think there is an outside – there a “floor” – it is just a meaning or a label from the mind, in the mind, of the mind – all done by the grace of perception. What about “chicken”? Ha ha. Its all in your head, so to speak.
“Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) means anything.”
– ACIM lesson 1
As you look around carefully, all the things you seemingly know – everything within the periphery of your sight has no meaning “out there” except “in here” within the mind. There are no meanings “out there,” hence meaningless as it can be. Your clever perception conjures it all out, to the minutest meaning. In fact, you are living a world of your own meanings, to each its own. You have never, never, left yourself except bounded by meanings over meanings, overlapping each other, conjured by the function of perception in your mind.
The someone “out there” that “left you” is simply an idea, a meaning of a memory flood of perception. Perception churns juicy glamourous storylines out of each moment of idea and that is what you have to face – over and over again, thinking it has something to do with out there. No one left, no one came except seeing. A little out of the function of seeing, is the beginning of your story – a nightmare, a happy dream, whatever. You have to experience those meanings trapped within you since beginning of time until you get awakened by it. Betrayal? Reflect upon it. Hurt? Look into the abyss of your consciousness – you will see the beginning and the end of your problem. If you don’t see that, then forgiveness meaning is necessary – but the blatant truth is this: forgive others for the wrong they have not done (ACIM). And this brings you back to your very doorstep. You have to open that door alone, all by yourself, only to realize Love, stripped from all meanings, is all that is. Until then, “Love” is just a sweet idea of perception, a meaningless meaning.
My inner journey matters to me dearly. Your inner journey matters to you only. Until we realize that we never met – we are merely meeting ourselves, over and over again, life after life – if ever there is such a meaning. When we realized, awakened, we meet with love, with peace, with compassion, not for the sake of the world, but for our own and with that I see you from that light and you will see me who I am, in the mirror of your own mind.
Only then the Kingdom can be experienced on this earthy temporal plane, albeit still just an illusion…