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Amelia Island
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Rainer Maria Rilke, in a letter to Lou Andreas-Salomé, briefly lover and life-long confidante -
On the Volga [River], on this restfully rolling ocean, to be days and nights, many days and many nights, a broad, broad stream, high, high woods along one shore, along the other a deep moorland in which even big cities stand like mere shacks and tents. - One learns all dimensions anew. One discovers: land is huge, water is something huge, and above all the sky is huge. What I have seen until now was no more than an image of land and river and world. Here, however, everything is itself. - I feel as if I had been witness to the Creation; a few words for all existences, the things in the measure of God the Father . . . (The Schmargendorf Diary. July 31, 1900)
The above words speak of a shift in seeing, a transformation from seeing as something appears to seeing as insight - perceiving the inner of things. Yet, this inner is not in contrast to outer but in unity with it - the outer being local, the inner non-local. When seeing this way, one is not separate from the seeing, for intimacy meets intimacy, inner greets inner.
"One learns all dimensions anew." "One discovers..." "What I have seen until now is no more than an image ..." "Here, ... everything is itself" - that is, in contrast to how I had seen, this is how they actually are, rather than a virtual reality like seeing as before. I saw a facsimile; now I see, in the words of Suzuki Roshi - "things as it is."
Elsewhere, in Book I of Rilke's The Book of Hours, he has the monk, fictional speaker of the verse, say -
Nothing was complete before I saw it,
everything evolving stood still.
My eyes are ripe; whatever they desire
approaches like a bride.
*Quote of letter and the Book, in The Book of Hours (German Edition). Trans. Edward Snow.
Have you had moments when you saw something as it is, in its completeness, rather than as you had previously perceived it, in partiality? Another way of saying this, in Rilke's words, "Have you ever had a moment when your eyes were ripe?" You can call these moments revelation, epiphany, insight, realization, seeing, awakening, ... They are not supernatural, for they are a seeing of what is outside the dichotomy of natural and supernatural. What you see has not, then, changed; rather, you see as with new eyes, or from the heart. What is has always been complete; our seeing is, however, often incomplete.
* * *
Realization... a term for spiritual awakening; thus, sometimes I speak of "spiritual realization." The verb "realize" comes from a French verb, réaliser, "make real," from real, "actual." Yet, one cannot make anything real real - it is real. One sees what is real as real, or not. For example, one may see a mirage as a mirage, so it is a real mirage, or see it as not a mirage, so it is not a mirage. However, in matters mundane and spiritual, one can fail to see the real as real or assign reality to something not real. This confusion, Buddhists speak of as one of the three poisons, "ignorance." Many Buddhists say this ignorance is the root of all misery.
In general, the great Eastern Traditions of Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism hold that the goal of the spiritual life is freedom from this ignorance through realization. They provide differences based on culture and time, yet all would agree most people live in a virtual reality, or a hallucination.
This does not mean the hallucination is sinful or wrong. And there is no god judging anyone or divine commandments to obey. These paths do not offer devotees the guilt trip that is rampant in Near Eastern and Western theistic traditions. So, living an unrealized life is simply that, nothing more, and persons may do so from markedly dysfunctional to highly functional. Again, it is not sinful not to wake up spiritually, and it is not something to be condemned that one does not see something as it is; hence, there is no need to judge anyone for being asleep to the Sacred.
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By 1775, the sense of "understand clearly, comprehend the reality of" is recorded for "to realize." Still, one may comprehend the reality of something sacred without ever fully understanding it. In fact, the realization of sacredness means one cannot understand it, not in the usual sense of intellectual.
I often, as other persons, use the "see" as a way of speaking of awakening to the reality of sacredness. This awakening is not a matter of intellect; in fact, intellect can be a major hindrance to seeing the real as real. In intellect, we think we know something to be what it is, so we may miss what it is or the more it is.
This likelihood is increased because reason is shaped by society. We are told in advance what is real and what is not, what can be real and what cannot. Thus, seeing Reality is a challenge to our programmed ways of seeing and naming subtle reality. In secular cultures, we are shaped to distrust the sacred while placing unquestioned faith in the claims of materialists.
Among materialists, what is registered by the five senses is the lone reality, and the presumption is we have only those senses. To claim this, however, is to deny the cross-cultural testimony over many centuries; hence, in ruling out the possibility of all else, materialists disparage religious beliefs, while they prostrate to the dogmatism of secularity, being no less doctrinaire than many in religion, and being no less ignorant, for ignoring what does not fit their worldview, than the ones they disparage. Secular societies are replete with devotees of this reductionism of the whole to stuff - materialistic fanatics everywhere, looking down their noses at anyone who says they have encountered more.
* * *
A monk walking along a road with the abbot:
"Father, how can I find Christ?"
The abbot, pointing to a woman walking by, said, "See."
* * *
We are taught the word "rose,"
but prior the rose tells its scent.
What if we have not been given a language to name,
thus, recognize, spiritual realities as spiritual?
What if, rather than our spiritual sense not speaking to us,
revealing to us, it is doing so?
What if we have not learned, we already see
what we are seeing?
Imagine walking through a flower garden with a nose unable to smell. If someone told you how wonderful the scents were, you might deny it, for you would be unable to recognize - so, realize - them. The scents would not be your perceived reality, but still, reality.
Simply that we live among many - even most - who deny spiritual realities does not mean such is not true. That we might know little of the experience of such realities does not mean they do not exist.
Accordingly, if you wanted to enjoy the flower garden scents, what would you do? You would need to teach your nose to smell the scents. Simply accepting what others say about flower scents might inspire you, but it would not be enough, nor would reading holy books about flower scents. If you joined a flower-scent religion, that would be insufficient, too.
Or could it be that you were smelling the scents but were trained to deny it, so you totally missed the awareness of it? Then, the nose would need to be trained again, having forgotten the wonderful scent of flowers.
* * *
Thus, the Christian Scripture says, "Awaken, you who sleep. Arise from the dead (or, "realm of the dead, or "sleep."), and Christ will shine upon you." The Light will shine means you will recognize the light of the Light.
Light cannot begin to shine, for light is the shining, even as the word "Buddha" points to a wakefulness already, always present. Buddha cannot not be awake, or Buddha would not be Buddha.
We awaken. We feel and see the Light. Until then, as far as our spiritual faculties are concerned, we are living in the world of the dead, we are asleep, snoozing away. Hades skeletons are walking all around, yet they see those with breath and skin as somehow misled. Can a corpse fathom the life of the living?
* * *
Still, I am not proposing a naivete in regard to spirituality; that would be like that of the materialists. There is likely more hocus-pocus in the spirituality marketplace than authentic spirituality. Likewise, there are well-known cases of teachers sexually abusing followers. And in the Christian religion, two leading groups have had widespread sexual misconduct of its clergy leadership uncovered: Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist. There is much need for persons to practice spiritual discernment.
* * *
To see speaks of waking up to sense the spiritual world, which is, we learn, not separate from this world. Thus, the abbot points to the woman. See?
* * *
Capping Verse
That we seek, by whatever we call it,
no one has ever found.
Yet, it finds
us.
To realize this being-found,
we see -
which means we stop not seeing.
A woman walks by.
A dog barks.
Clouds part.
Everyone has the same eyes -
but the heart must open to meet.
* * *
*(C) brian k. wilcox, 2026
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