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Realization... Knowing wind when a breeze blows across your face. Knowing the taste of an apple when you are chewing it. Knowing what love is by loving and being loved. Not merely knowing about, but knowing. Knowing not by blind faith but by direct, unmediated insight.
* * *
I, mid-teens, prostrated face down in the pine woods beside the three-path dirt road, a short distance from home and our church, Philadelphia Missionary Baptist Church, though oddly it was not a Missionary Baptist church but a Southern Baptist one. I was praying in the woods, for I felt something was missing from my religious experience. I longed for all of God possible for me - nothing less. I thought there was more. If I prayed hard enough, God might give it to me.
Many, belonging to what was called the holiness churches (Church of God, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God ...) believed, unlike us Baptists, in what was called the Second Blessing, namely the Baptism in the Holy Spirit - many still said Ghost rather than Spirit. Also, for most holiness people, speaking in unknown tongues, called glossolalia, was the sign of the Blessing. If you could not sound rather like a turkey gobbling while in a euphoric loss of self-autonomy, you had not received the Baptism. And to get this second installment, one had to pray for it, not knowing when it would arrive. It might overtake you on a first-time praying for it, a hundredth time, or a five-hundredth time. No one ever explained to me why God would not just pass it down right away, seeing as he wanted everyone to have it.
Thus, the holiness people thought we Baptists were losing out on what more God could give us. We were Christians, so they thought, but. The Baptists held the holiness people in suspicion. We Baptists were not euphoric, and we spoke only English; our worship was more like a mourning over Jesus' crucifixion than a celebration of his resurrection. We believed, too, when we were, as we called it, "saved," we got the full deal, nothing left out or left over.
So, whatever the holiness congregations were doing with their glossolalia, dancing down aisles, falling slain - literally dropping unconscious - in the Spirit - even where parishioners would cover up the women's legs so worshipers could not see under their dresses - shouting out loud... all this we Baptists stayed far away from. Well, except my Granny Missie, dad's mom. She had a shouting fit in church once in a while - in earlier times, it was not uncommon for there to be what came to be called Shouting Baptists. Grandma was one of them - a leftover from days past. She would suddenly stand and begin shouting, arms raised to the skies, praising her God. We would stop the worship meeting, patiently waiting for Missie to conclude and sit down. Otherwise, we were a rather tranquil group. On occasion, we heard an "Amen!" for something the pastor said in his sermon, but rarely. That is it.
I prayed ardently among those trees, bent over onto pine nettles. Nothing happened. I left the woods disappointed, but determined still to get what I sought. I learned, in time, there was no need for a Second Blessing... Third... Fourth... . All I needed to do was realize the blessing - that there is only one, and it is sufficient and more.
Learning to live in a deepening realization, not merely ritualism and ideology - has been my life since those days of seeking the treasure already inside my pocket.
* * *
In time, seeking dropped - when it was time for it to drop. How did it happen? Realization was given, yet the giving was not separate from my own giving to myself. We cultivate, we participate in the ripening.
Still, the years of the search, including that afternoon prostrated in the woods, were part of discovering there was nothing to look for, for there was nothing lost. Whatever "Holy Spirit" could mean was fully present and not separate from me, and it was so much more than I - or anyone - believed it to be.
Seeking is an important act in the approach to realization. While Spirit is not developmental, realization of its progressive unfolding is. We are where we are. No one steps into realization without preparation to do so. And when the Truth, as Presence, is seen as fully present and not separate from us, or anything, we begin learning how to live that knowing. We have been transformed from not knowing, to knowing about, to knowing. We discover we can live where we once only theorized about and possibly had brief visits to - often called peak experiences. And the learning never ends, because realization is not a single event; it is an ever-unfolding relationship. Intimacy unfolds, clarity clarifies.
* * *
Zen Koan -
Xuefeng said, “Many people sit beside a rice basket, dying from starvation. Many sit beside an ocean, dying of thirst.”
[How sad! Lost and running from lost... lost.
You cannot get out of a hole by digging it deeper.]
Xuansha said, “There are many who sink their heads inside a rice basket and, still, die of hunger. And many stick their heads into the ocean and perish from thirst.”
[A head has never eaten or drunk.
At least the head is inside now.}
Yunmen later said, “The entire body is rice. The entire body is water.”
[Rice looking elsewhere is rice looking for rice,
water looking elsewhere is water searching for water.]
* * *
Why do we look
here and there?
Like walking on a footpath,
thinking the ground must be elsewhere.
Looking... looking... looking...
but who or what's looking?
If you think it's that in a mirror -
you've missed it.
If you think it resides inside -
you've missed it.
If you liken it to "zero" -
you're getting very close.
When "zero" vanishes -
what's there?
Something -
before anyone spoke of birth, life, or death.
When you see the original face -
there's neither frown nor smile.
Do your eyes go about
trying to find themselves?
Walking about poor -
the treasure is inside the pocket.
Don't be a fish swimming about
looking for water.
Don't be a bird flying about
searching for the skies.
* * *
First, Xuefeng... Some are near the Truth. They do nothing about it. They pass life asleep. Die asleep. Have no idea, not the faintest, of what is on the menu. When invited to the feast, they may scorn it as superstitious, old-fashioned, a fable, ignorance, ... They shun and scorn what they know nothing about experientially. They know about - without knowing - just enough to parade their ignorance pridefully, shamelessly.
Second, Xuansha... Some search for and explore the Truth through practices and truths. They may participate in a religion. Read holy scriptures, teach or preach them. Pray. Chant. Meditate. Attend retreats. Live separately from the world. Maintain lofty, commendable moral standards. Be a religious or spiritual leader. They cling to finger-pointing at the Moon, yet they do not gaze upon the Moon. They are like connoisseurs who do not taste the meal. These are one step closer to realization. This place is not a bad place to be; it is a necessary place to be, but it is not a place to stay. Many believe this is the end, thinking they must wait until after death for more, like a heaven somewhere or another lifetime. Most religious groups stop here. Most popular spiritualities stop here, even if they arrive here.
Third, Yunmen... Some realize experientially, not merely theoretically, that there is no separation between themselves and Life. The whole body is intimate with the Truth. These persons experience the Withinness that is outside and inside. When looking inside, Spirit. When looking outside, Spirit. Their body is part of the Body. They have grown beyond what points to the Mystery, when before, they might have had one or more temporary visits. They taste the Truth, and it humbles them.
* * *
With the body full of rice and water, we have moved from religion to religiousness. We may not relinquish prior religious practice, yet we experience it differently. Practices can assist in tending the seeds - potentials, qualities - of realization, so that we deepen intimacy with Spirit, for realization itself is a new beginning, not an end. We never stop beginning. We never stop arriving.
* * *
Jean Klein - Ease of Being...
"It must come to you."
Realization is not something you get...
it gets you.
It is the source of
your desire for it.
Yet, it will not get you, unless
you do something for it to get you.
What, then,
are you going to do?
* * *
(C) brian wilcox, 2026
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