The Element of Harmony
At the very beginning of our journey together, I will make a statement that will startle your mind. It might not sit very well in your current experience of life, but I will say it nevertheless. I know your rational mind will find many ways to disprove the statement. You’re free to follow the mind’s endless logical circles, but remember that you’re also free to snap out of it. The statement goes like this:
The substance of life is peace and harmony.
You are floating in an endless ocean of peace and harmony. There’s only one way of not being able to see this, and that is the way of your logical and rational mind. Any chaos you encounter in the paths of your life is the product of your own mind. I will light this statement with a parable that will extend throughout our whole journey, one piece at a time. This parable also acts as a way of introducing you to the very core of the message I am here to bring.
Since you’re still reading this, I feel inclined to mention that it’s nice that you didn’t throw the book away. There are many words in human communication that have gathered much unnecessary burden of meanings, and one of those words is ‘soul’. There’s no reason for you to get too religious or atheistic about it. Just treat the parable as metaphorical information. I’m sorry if I have to use words that do not always suit your rational mind, but some words carry such intense metaphorical meanings that I am inclined to use them. No better word exists to point at a primordial form of life than ‘soul’.
We will return to the story of the little soul later. Now it’s time to investigate the first hints of the message I bring. So, what do you think about the little soul’s desire to expand? Can you feel affection toward it? Are you curious to know what it means to expand in the first place? The curiosity arises in you because you bear exactly the same desire within. The desire to expand is the very basis of human nature, and it breathes within me as it breathes within you.
This book is not about exercising any belief system or technique, but let me walk you through a straightforward guidance, which we will keep as short as possible. The guidance goes like this:
First,expand your awareness toward the world around you. Just acknowledge that there is a world which you perceive at this very moment—you might be in a room, or open space, or wherever you are. Any place will do. Pay no attention to any specific thing in that world. Then, without thought, become aware how the world is included in you.
This is how simple it is to expand. Since you can expand yourself like this, it means you already have expanded yourself like this without knowing it. This isn’t new to you. Expanding into the world is as natural as it gets for you.
Your desire to expand might express itself in many different ways. You hope for life more satisfying and peaceful. Avoiding suffering and seeking happiness are your primary drivers, and you aspire to find captivating meanings in everything you do. These things are all unconscious expressions of your desire to expand yourself. Despite being unconscious expressions, there’s nothing wrong with them. However, wouldn’t you feel more aligned with yourself if you expanded into all those different things consciously? They are not ideas of you achieving or becoming something, but ideas of you being something. The whole world points at you because of the simple circumstance that you have expanded into the whole world.
Now let me stop for just a little moment. What I just said might reveal some resistance in you. I will repeat myself here to make the point clear enough:
You have expanded into the whole world.
I hope I didn’t lose your rational mind saying this. An urge might arise in you to put the book down and label it as spiritual mumbo-jumbo, but please, just bear with me. It will very soon dawn on you that the message I bring is neither philosophical or spiritual. Labeling anything as 'spiritual' is just a product of your rational mind. There is nothing spiritual in the world. There is no particular place or time to be spiritual. Being spiritual is not something you can turn on and off. I might only use the word sometimes to point out some subtle truths in a way you have learned to understand.
Together we’re limited by the human vocabulary that can only go around in circles—defining one word through other words. Language is like the snake Ouroboros eating its tail, yet here and now, language is what I must use to communicate the message to you. In other words, to catch a fish, you must place the hook under the water. This is why this book exists in the first place—to guide you out from the deep waters of the world you’ve learned to live in. So, treat me as a fisherman, who will lift you above the surface and show you an entirely different world than you’ve ever known. But unlike fishermen usually do, I will set you free at the same instant you’ve seen my world. Wherever you will then expand is your own choice. It has always been, and it will always be so.
The most crucial aspects of your expansion are forms that seem to reflect yourself—other human beings, whom I will refer to in the future as your ‘brothers and sisters’. With them, you seek familiarity, peace, and harmony. But with them, you might find yourself in the most grievous situations ever. Relationships—both intimate and casual—withhold inescapable gravity from which you cannot hide. This gravity is your doorway to joy and happiness. I’m not saying it is the only doorway, but it is the one you have attached most meanings to.
I must mention at this point that the doorway is not actually a doorway since there is no door to joy and happiness. They are intrinsic attributes of the life that you express by simply being human. Therefore, many mystics throughout eons have referred to this as the doorless door, the gateless gate, which one must pass to find true joy and happiness. It is a portal without frames, and when you pass through, everything around you stays seemingly the same. There’s a saying in one of your perennial philosophies:before enlightenment, life is carrying water and chopping wood, and after enlightenment, life is carrying water and chopping wood. Only your perception of everything has shifted toward something that you call joy and happiness. And to make it even more clear, changing your perception doesn’t mean you have changed. It just means you have become aware of joy and happiness into which you have already expanded.
This discovery of joy and happiness sounds easy, doesn’t it? However, if it were easy, you would have found lasting joy and happiness long ago, along with billions of your brothers and sisters. Here’s where you go off track: you believe the world is supposed to make you happy. If that were true, you would already be full of happiness, and most probably wouldn’t be reading this book. You must trust me when I say that the world doesn’t owe you anything—the world is not responsible for your happiness. The world doesn’t need to change for you to find happiness.
