Realize, to know first-hand, by experience; to become or be intimate or one with something.
* * *
The jewel of truth rests under the thicket of words ... burn the scrub down
if you truly what to see otherwise, you'll remain in the dark even with two eyes wide open
why talk on and on about the Moon while She waits to make love with you
was a child ever conceived through love-talk
why admire the candle flame when you can jump inside and taste the Fire
truth received you become
when the sacred books went up in flame wow! I saw your face
now... what can be said about that? ... your smile captured the heart and tamed this tongue
* * *
A local pastor came to see the Sage. The Sage welcomed him. Soon, it was clear the visitor wanted to prove his beliefs were correct and convince the Sage of the error of his teaching - though he had only heard others talk of what they said the host taught.
The clergyperson began sharing his beliefs, even without asking for permission. The man supported his ideas by referencing what the Bible says, a theologian says, or the church says. After a time, the Sage interrupted him, asking, "But what do you say?"
The Sage's question is, "What can you speak based on experience, undiluted by what anyone else has said?" In the Gospels, Jesus asks his students the same question: "Who do people say I am?" They reply some say this, some that. He asks, "But whom do you say I am?" Again, "Based on our being together, what have you come to see [realize] I am?"
* * *
We cannot adopt truth from others, make it ours like an heirloom passed down from the past. We cannot realize it, for some sacred texts or so-called enlightened beings said so.
Realization of truth is like standing outside under the rainfall. You can sit inside and think about what the rain is, for so-and-so said so. You can scientifically know the nature of rain in varied ways: reading, listening to a lecture ...
To know the rain, you go outside and stand in it. The rainfall falls on you. There is a meeting. There is intimacy. Then, you realize. Then, nothing you have heard about the rain matches what you realize about rain. Before, you knew about rain, now you know rain.
* * *
This receptivity is indicated in the Old English origins of "understand." The literal meaning here is "among, or between, to stand." You cannot stand off from the rain and understand the rain; thereby, you can only have ideas about the rain. To know about implies distance, like circling a center. To know connotes intimacy. You stand among the raindrops and know the rain, there is no gap between you and the rain. Any raindrop you can know this way. You can know all the rainfall by knowing one raindrop.
Regardless, this does not mean you can describe the rain to anyone else or yourself. You can never describe the rain. The moment you try, you are stepping outside the unmediated meeting. You are using the forms to try to clarify the intangible. You are attempting to make the moon fit inside your shoe.
Yet, you can convey something of the formless truth through something formless. That formless medium is presence. Not your presence... presence. Presence without an "I."
* * *
Exploring ideas can stimulate us to reach forth to meet truth. Yet, when we receive truth, it does not fit anywhere. We may try - and often do, until that futile attempting exhausts itself - to fit it backward into something we thought before the meeting, but it will not fit.
As a little boy, I recall trying to hold a fish drawn out of the water. It kept slipping out of my hands. That is the nature of a wet fish - to be slippery. Truth is like that... try to get it, and it slips away. You can only make a space within yourself to receive it.
When you encounter something that you can not speak about, regardless of how much you talk about it, you have met with truth. This truth reveals itself as truth by an inner resonation within yourself.
Your work is to attune yourself to the truth so that you welcome this spontaneous, subtle resonation. Otherwise, other voices will dominate your mind, including all the voices from the past that said so-and-so is true.
One reason we sit in silence daily is to create this unprejudiced, welcoming space. We are not there to have some 'super-spiritual' experience. We are there to learn to see clearly. This practice can often feel dull, yet it works.
