Differences, borders, lines, surfaces, and boundaries do not really divide things from each other at all; they join them together. All boundaries are held in common.

When you understand this, you see that the sense of being 'me' is exactly the same sensation as being one with the whole cosmos. You do not need to go through some other weird, different, or odd kind of experience to feel in total connection with everything.

Once you get the clue, you see that the sense of unity is inseparable from the sense of difference. The secret is that what is 'other' eventually turns out to be you. That is the element of surprise in life - to find the thing that is most alien is you.

If you go out at night and look at the stars you will realize that they are millions and millions and billions of miles away - vast configurations out in space! You can lie back and look at that and say, "Whew! Surely I hardly matter. I am just a tiny peek-a-boo on this weird spot of dust called Earth, and all that out there was going on billions of years before I was born, and will still go on billions of years after I die."

Nothing may seem stranger to you than that - more different from you. But there comes a point when you will say, "Why, that's me!" And when you know that, you know you never die.

Page Created on: June 16, 1998