One night, as I kneeled beside my bed and prayed, I gazed through my window at the starry night. I thought of how God was THROUGH, and yet BEYOND, all space. Suddenly, I had the sensation of being surrounded by a musical harmony like a great anthem, only inaudible to the human ear. Then I just seemed to evaporate until I too was THROUGH and BEYOND the stars.
I was completely filling space, and the musical harmony was completely filling me. I did not see the proverbial Light, I experienced it. I did not hear the anthem, I was it... I understood that everything was part of God, everything in the universe was one.
~ Janice in "Re-Visioning Childhood Experience" by Edward Hoffman
When a gong or "singing bowl" is struck in the silent stillness, a reverberating sound is suddenly born...it lingers briefly...decays and dies. The sound can represent the span of our life-experience, but never our Life. Our true self is not the perishable sound, but the imperishable, still silence from which the sound arose and resonated temporarily. Indeed, this truth has even greater depths for it may be understood, that in our essence, we are none other than That which strikes the gong, so to speak, and silently witnesses the resulting "sound."
Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, when they have a Treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.
