In the stillness of meditation we can not only know, but directly experience that the whole world arises within the mind, within consciousness.

Metaphorically, this consciousness is the producer and the director of the movie of our life. And within that movie, which plays within consciousness, arises this small character we call “I.”

What we know well is the state of mind when consciousness has lost itself in the character, when we identify with the “I” and its joys and pains, its desires and fears. It’s like the director identifies with one of the characters on the screen and suffers through the ups and downs of the character’s fate, which he himself has created.

But in the stillness of meditation, consciousness can detach from being absorbed in the play of the “I.” It can recognize its true nature and origin, which is limitless, timeless awareness, the Self, the Source of consciousness and all that appears in it.

With this shift of perspective, consciousness awakens to the realization that it is not the little character on the screen. Rather the character, along with its whole world, appears within consciousness. Now consciousness can take a new look at the “I.”

It observes the “I” it creates, alive inside its world, both existing within itself. And this vast and free mind that contains everything may ask itself, “Why have I abandoned this little character with its sense of ‘I’ to its confusion, its desires and fears?”

In this recognition, love is remembered, a complete love that is woven entirely into the fabric of life, a love that leaves nothing out. It is one with the nature of consciousness. And that love now turns to the illusory “I.” It embraces it, recognizing it as its own creation, like a loving parent who embraces a long-lost child. This is the great compassion at the core of the heart.

Now we know the “I” once more for what it is: a spurious identity we have created and then left to its own devices in a world we are dreaming. There it sees itself as separate from its creator and suffers, is insecure, runs after countless things that cannot make it free and fears its own end. It has become the suffering self we know, that self that is lost in an enormous world it cannot control.

And now consciousness, embracing its own creation in love, can put an end to the pain. It can put an end to the illusion of separateness. How could the “I” be separate from the consciousness in which it exists? And that consciousness, once it recognizes itself as pure love, infuses the “I,” transforms it and frees it of its fears and confused desires, from depression, grief and self-doubt.

In the stillness of the mind this great love is discovered, the Source-Love that can heal the “I,” the love that ends the pain of separation. This love is eternal.

We are this love.

We have never been lost, but we perceived it so. The little “I” character has always existed inside this love, inside this heart/mind. Now it can be loved again, and loved fully!

The beloved is inside the lover.

Can you see this “I,” this person you think you are, even for a moment inside the consciousness in which it exists? It is the key that unlocks the jail of separation and fear, for you will find you exist in love. Even a glimpse of this love and you know you are safe.