A Glimpse Behind the Curtain

Have you ever been driving down the road, or taking a shower, or weeding your garden and have a clear, intelligent idea come to you? Have you ever had something physical happen, like catching a falling object or hitting a perfect ball in a sport in a way that surprises you to the extent you are not sure how it happened, and you cannot take credit for it? Have you ever struggled to understand something, maybe wrestled to find a solution to something for a while, and all of a sudden the right answer appears?

These glimpses may be dismissed but their benefit is never forgotten. They are events of awareness that reveal inspired ideas beyond our thoughts, beyond our personal experience.

These are inspired ideas and they can grow, expanding in our life as we become more and more interested in the peace and assurance they bring. We become drawn to these ideas and the effortless wisdom that unfolds when we stop trying to manage everything that appears in our lives. This is the Spiritual View where clarity dissolves the problems and they disappear, like darkness disappears in the presence of light.

Sometimes these occurrences are referred to as “AHA!” moments, in that we have a glimpse and sudden understanding, and at that moment we are free of our personal thoughts about what life should be.

Human experience in the Personal View is like a curtain that seems to hide the existence of these inspired ideas. We generally are not aware of them as we live on the confusing stage of human existence. But behind the curtain, clarity and intelligence can be found working perfectly and always available to us.

Spiritual teachings for thousands of years have taught that what is truly good is not material and cannot be seen through sensory perception or understood with our minds, but it is available through the cultivation of awareness. Today we go to yoga classes and meditation groups, religious services, read spiritual blogs and listen to podcasts, spend more time in the peace and beauty of nature, all to get a glimpse of what lies behind the curtain of our experience.