There is a wonderful form of greeting in the Indian subcontinent. You meet someone, look deeply into their eyes, recognize the divine essence within, join your hands together in front of your chest, bow and say with sincere reverence, "I salute the divine spirit within you". This is the ceremony of Namaste, which is fascinating: a deep respect, a reverence for the spirit recognised in the other. Because you know that we are the same: a divine spirit in human skin.
As a human race, we are strange creatures. As embodiments of life, we come into being on this miraculous planet teeming with life, where everything, everything is a great miracle, because its existence is a miracle. Nothing necessarily needs to exist. But it does exist: a rose with an incomparable fragrance, a gracefully arching blade of grass, a twiggy, scraggly forest tree, a trilling bird. Oh, so much unique beauty! And all alive, rooted in being, they are the embodiment, the manifestation of life itself.
As innocent babies, we experience this unique magic, and then, with enormous effort, we acquire a wealth of knowledge and "cleverness". We learn, we absorb the knowledge of countless disciplines, and in doing so we take the unified world, initially experienced as a concept-free wonder, and break it down into pieces, translate it into concepts, terms, equations, numbers and think we "know what it is". Just a rose, an ordinary, boring rose. Just a blade of grass, and we hit it with the lawnmower without deeply understanding that these are all wonderful expressions of life. There is a 'something' in them that is totally incomprehensible to the mind, Life, which science calls 'complexity'. Complexity? A beautiful term, perhaps a little incomprehensible... but that's what a term should be: incomprehensible, difficult to pronounce, "clever". But has it even explained the incomparable miracle of existence, of life? No, we have only invented a word. A concept with which we have killed the miracle of life.
Science, 'cleverness', is great because it makes it easier to shape the realm of matter to our liking, to split an atom to make electricity and to make a nuclear weapon. But we must not forget for a moment that it does no more than describe in terms of laws what already exists, what already works, independently of science. It is useful to think of the world in parts, but we must be aware that the world is a single whole, functioning as a whole, not to be dissected, not to be broken up into completely separate parts. The chicken, to be consumed, to be digested, must be ingested bite by bite, but the living chicken is a single whole, more than a collection of parts: the miracle of Life lives in and through it.
We adopt beliefs, complex belief systems. We believe them, we don't question them, because for us these beliefs come from reliable, important and respected sources. I don't question them because I want to gain roots to exist in a community. I embrace unchewingly that this is 'good' and that is 'bad'. Anyone who thinks like me is a bosom friend, I love him, and anyone who thinks differently is a dangerous stranger. You are not like me: you do not believe what I believe. You are a stranger, I fear you - and for my safety I would even destroy you. And when you become deeply enslaved to a belief system, you no longer see adherents of belief systems other than your own as a living miracle, but only as an enemy to be destroyed. In the ideological struggles of the last century alone, 170 million deaths have been an exclamation point that our unconscious identification with our belief systems is a self- and public-endangering folly.
Why do we feel strange when someone looks us in the eye? Are we afraid of exposing our emotions, our ulterior motives, afraid that we can no longer lie to ourselves and others? Are we afraid of exposing the deceitful tricks of our little selves that want, speculate, calculate, influence and persuade? We feel that if they look us in the eye, they are invading our intimate sphere. Because the eyes are the mirror of the soul. The eyes are not only the mirror of the soul, but through them our essence, our true Self, looks at the world. Through our eyes, the divine spirit scans itself and the world. And behind the eyes of each of us lies the same mysterious, enigmatic, elusive intelligence, spirit.
When I look deep into your eyes, I see the life-brimming sparkle of your eyes, and the incomprehensible, mysterious wonder that is You. When I look into your eyes, I see that you are the same as me. You live as a human being, as I do, in an artificial society, in our own creation, where you experience joy and sorrow, terror and love, fear or liberation; you are a feeling and understanding human being, like me. I hide from you, I hide my emotions, my thoughts, because I am separated from you, because I am afraid of you; and deep down I am lonely. But when I look deep into your eyes and see in them the awake gleam of life, then I recognize you: you, like me, are the same single Life, in another body, in another material form.
Once you manage to linger in a state of thoughtless awareness, once you see the miraculous nature of labelling, categorising and unconsciousness, you are shocked to realise that your true self is nothing but an aware existence: loving, intangible, mind-inexplicable void. A spirit hiding in your body, curiously and openly scanning itself and the world. You realize that this mysterious, unnamable "something" is none other than Life, Consciousness, present in all forms of life - or, if you like, God Himself, which is far more than the God-image of the monotheistic tradition.
A mysterious something has taken on flesh within you to experience itself in varied forms, in unparalleled and unique patterns of manifestation. It is this single spirit that lurks behind your curiously contemplative eyes, and the same spirit lurks behind the life-glittering eyes of your fellow human beings. Then the veil of labelling and judgement is lifted, and the truth is revealed, which now sees the holiness and divinity of all life. You see the deceitfulness of belief systems. How they hide the truth from you, how they label another way of life as "good" or "bad", and so doing, conceal its true nature. You realise that whatever it is that appears before you in the infinite, eternal now, is nothing but the manifestation of the one Life in its unique forms. You bow before it with admiration, with reverence, because you recognize the mysterious, single spirit that is hidden within it. Yes, you and I are the same: embodiments of the same one Consciousness in unique and unparalleled forms, and beyond these forms we are all the same One "something".
I know you are not a stranger. I look into your eyes and find the meaning behind your sparkling eyes. I see you! I see your true essence! No need to hide: I am the same as you! I recognize you, though you come in the guise of another human form! I and You are the same! These are the sacred encounters when we do not pass each other by as frightened strangers, but recognize each other's true being, recognize ourselves in each other. I and You are not different: we are essentially the same - just hiding behind different masks!
Namaste, my dear fellow human being! I embrace with love the divine spirit within you!
Excerpt from the book "The Mysteries of Consciousness” by Ervin Kery