THE GIFT OF OUR TRUE NATURE

This is one of my favorite passages in “A Brightly Guided Life” by Ingrid Honkala.

— A few days later, Santiago met me at the house where we held Transcendental Meditation meetings every week. By this time, he had been practicing TM for six months. That night about thirty people were all gathered together in a big room. We sat on the floor with the lights off, in total silence. 

Suddenly I did something that seemed opposed to everything I had learned about meditation: I started to giggle. No matter how hard I tried to stop, I just felt this unstoppable laugh emerging from within. Then one of my cousins who was sitting next to me started to laugh as well. We were followed by another and another, until the whole room was invaded by one loud, persistent and powerful roar of laughter. It became so contagious that even some people outside the room joined in. This was the longest and most intense laughter of my life, seeming to go on forever. According to someone waiting outside, it lasted for about twenty minutes.

Gradually we stopped laughing until the room became completely quiet, then stayed in meditation for another ten minutes. When the mediation ended, as we walked out of the room everybody wondered what had happened. People tried to find reasons but nobody could discover one. The common answer was that it had been the most amazing, liberating and unifying experience of our lives. That night, for no reason, we all simply laughed. This was the first time that I had experienced such unity with so many people at the same time, without any effort or expectation whatsoever. After a minute of reflection, I realized: This is what I meant to say the other day to Santiago. This is what I would call a moment without ego, without any sense of boundaries, or any separation or judgment; just a moment of unity, a moment of joy and love.

Feeling grateful, I thanked the Beings of Light, then went to share my thoughts with my friend.

“Santiago, do you realize that it doesn’t matter how different all of us are on the outside, because tonight we laughed as equals?”

“Wow! It was amazing. It felt like we were one big chorus,” he said.

“Yes, we actually were!” I continued. “Do you also realize that this was a moment in which we were completely free from any judgment?”

“You’re right. I could have never laughed like that if I thought I was being judged. This was definitely a gift.”

“This is what I meant to say the other day at the cafeteria. That is what I would consider an egoless moment. Only by forgetting who we are and becoming free from judgment, can we let our True Nature be.”

“What is our True Nature?” he asked. At that moment, I remembered that the answer to that question had come to me about a year before, after I saw a movie on television about a person with amnesia. Feeling puzzled, I had asked the Beings of Light, “What would happen if I completely lost the memory of me, including my name? What would I become? Who would I be then? What would be left of me?”

“Your True Nature,” they answered. I told Santiago about the movie and asked him the same questions. Looking baffled he answered, “I don’t know.”

“Think of yourself as an onion,” I said. “An onion is made up of many layers, which is like the personality we have created after all these years of gathering experiences. The core of the onion is our beginning, a little baby who is pure and innocent. It is your True Nature, totally naked and completely free from any conditions. But to get back to the heart of the onion, we need to first peel off all these outer layers. In total amnesia, you might go all the way to the beginning of the Self by accident. But what if you could consciously peel off all the layers? Instead of finding only an innocent and pure baby, you will find that you are also an all-knowing and wise baby.”

“But, how do we do that?” he asked.

“You’ve already started,” I answered.

“Quieting your mind through meditation is the beginning. The quieter you become, the more aware you will be of your ego. That awareness will open the path for you to connect with your True Nature and to learn the difference between It and the ego.”

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