Your Reality, My Reality, and Big R Reality

A conversation I had with my selves during meditation.

image courtesy of stock.adobe.com

NICE ME SPEAKS:
While I was sitting this morning, an image came to me of everyone carrying the light of awareness. Everyone. With many of them, the light was tiny and dim, but it made me want to approach them gently and blow onto their flickering, like you would a desperately needed fire that was almost out. It only has a few coals, and dimming at that. A tiny chance, but crucial to survival.

How careful would we all be? If that tiny light were the last fire ever, how we would gather around it to protect it from a strong wind! Everyone’s faces graying out with the likely victory of ash…but everyone close together, arms locked and yet leaving small spaces between us so the breeze can feed the flame.

There would be one designated breather, inhaling deeply, then pointing lips aimed in a tiny oooo toward the remaining live coals — long, long, careful, steady streaming, gentle whoooooooos. Whoooo are you? Whooooo are you really? Each whooo strengthening the coal, brightening its body, and all our faces around it. Another in the circle ready with crumpled newspaper, and someone else with tiny kindling. Kindling. Kind-ling.

This is how it could work, I think. We take the weakest coal, place it next to whatever strong others there are — and we, together, help grow that flame. We give them our life breath.

The light of consciousness in everyone.

But then…

MEAN ME SPEAKS:
Well if everyone has the light of awareness in them, and your thesis is that we should approach the ones whose lights are almost out, that we should (*air quotes*) approach them tenderly and (*more air quotes*) feed their light till it’s strong enough to ignite the kindling — you’re in for a rude awakening. You gotta be kidding.

NICE ME:
I’m not.

MEAN ME:
Oh, come on. You’re not gonna bring your supposedly ‘more awakened self’ to Ukraine and flag down Russian tanks so you can gentle them awake into a bonfire of love. You’re not getting onto an F Train so you can approach the nearest crazy, violent person and love them out of…