The Open-Mind Meaning: Why Your Search for Freedom is the Only Obstacle

We spend our lives trying to grasp the totality as if it were something separate from us, a prize at the end of a long spiritual corridor. We look for a path, a method, or a teacher to guide us toward a freedom we imagine is currently missing. But who is it that is seeking? And where exactly do we think we are going? If the absolute is truly omnipresent, it must be right here. If it isn't here, it isn't the absolute. The very act of searching for what we already are creates the illusion of distance, reinforcing the separate self that feels cut off from the whole. We talk about the open-mind meaning as if it were a cognitive achievement, a state we can reach through enough effort or meditation. But the mind is like a crystal through which a single, impersonal white light passes. As that light hits the crystal of the mind, it refracts into a thousand different colors—the rainbow of multiplicity, of "me" and "you," of cause and effect, of time and space. We have become so identified with one specific color in that rainbow that we have forgotten we are the light itself. The mind can understand the many colors, but it can never climb back up the beam to understand the source. A room cannot contain the building it is part of. This is why understanding is not the same as clarity. Understanding is just a reflection of light on the surface of the mind. It is useful in the relative world; if we truly understood that there is no separation, our world would be free of the friction and suffering we see every day. Yet, even the most profound intellectual understanding is still a subtle form of seeking. It is the mind trying to "take in" or "embrace" the infinite. But how can the finite embrace the infinite? When we realize the mind cannot do this, there is a natural falling away. This isn't something we choose to do. The separate self cannot get rid of the separate self. It is more like a wave realizing it has always been the ocean and never stopped being it, even for a second. We often feel a sense of claustrophobia when we hear there is nothing we can do. The separate self wants instructions; it wants a ladder to climb. It asks, "How do I relax?" or "How do I reach the now?" But how many steps does it take to get to where you already are? How much time do we need to arrive at "now"? Any practice we engage in to reach a future state of enlightenment only pushes that state further away. Meditation might make the body-mind feel better in the moment—it can bring a deep quiet or a sense of peace—but it is not a bridge to the absolute. The absolute has no causes. If freedom were the result of a cause, it wouldn't be freedom; it would be a conditioned effect. Truly living the open-mind meaning is not about filling the head with non-dual concepts. It is about the "don't know" mind. When we say "I know," we close the door. When the mind admits "I don't know," something opens.