Reality is so beautiful, so breathtaking, when we see that there is no separateness. When you see the deeper dimension, when you penetrate that dimension, you see that this world is the expression of oneness, the expression of one love and harmony and beauty. And that person who is identical with the oneness of the world is the resurrection. The whole world is resurrected. Everything appears and is seen in its true reality. So the more profound spiritual realization is not the death and resurrection of who you are but the death and resurrection of the world. Not the death and resurrection of the separate individual entity, but the death and resurrection of the entire universe. The whole world as we usually see it is a dead world. Only with the resurrection does the world live. Everything lives. Even the rocks live. As I said, this is a very subtle and profound transformation that takes a tremendous amount of work and sincerity and dedication. If we’re lucky, we glimpse the resurrected world once in a while. When you perceive the oneness, the true unity, the world as it is, you can no longer be happy without it. You know now what you are. The moment that perception fades, the separation from oneness brings longing. What do you long for? To end the separation. You can say you long for God or you long for truth, but fundamentally you long to end that separateness.

Consciousness is the last concept, the last form. And it is hard to say it is a concept, because it is just the fact of consciousness. Beyond that, there is no consciousness. If you go beyond consciousness, it is a blackout. If you continue investigating, seeing the concepts, seeing the forms, at some point you forget you’re seeing concepts. And then you wake up again. That is resurrection. The world is back, but fresh.

Even consciousness, which is not exactly a concept, can be shed. At some point, usually without anticipating it, one realizes that one is perceiving the Nameless Reality as external to oneself. One becomes aware that one is beyond the Nameless, and the world that it supports, as an unknowable mystery. The Nonconceptual Reality, which is the ground of the world of concepts, is experienced here as not absolutely real. In fact, it is experienced as a radiance, ephemeral and insubstantial, in relation to and emanating from an unfathomable Absolute. One realizes that one's most absolute nature, which turns out to be the underlying nature of all of existence, transcends not only the mind, but consciousness itself. One is the beyond, beyond whatever can be experienced or perceived. The Absence is seen as an incomplete glimpse into the Absolute. One is the ultimate subject, which cannot be an object of perception, and hence is unknown and unknowable. The Absolute is not aware of itself, but awareness of everything else proceeds from it, while what characterizes consciousness is that it is conscious of itself.

So this is the redemption: In the course of our path of realizing what is beyond mind, the forms that came to be seen as only conceptual, empty, and unreal, now become full and real, filled with the truth. Here we can speak of a whole dimension we call the Cosmic Christ. In the way I understand Christian revelation, the person Christ, or Jesus, taught and embodied this perspective more clearly and more completely than anyone else before him. Christ taught that the kingdom of heaven has arrived here and now. When we go through the redemption, when the original sin is released, we realize that the kingdom of heaven is here. When we release the original sin, we experience the resurrection, and not only are we resurrected without the separate self, but the whole world is resurrected. Human life as a whole is resurrected, including the human mind, including the human heart. So Christ’s contribution to the understanding of the human situation is to show the truth and thus the value of the world, of existence, what in religious traditions is called creation. At the beginning of the spiritual path, the world is a big problem, being an individual is a big problem, the mind is a big problem. And from the perspective of beyond the conceptual mind, these are simply constructed concepts. Christ’s revelation teaches us not only to go beyond apparent reality to the knowledge of the Father, but to come back from and with that knowledge, resurrecting all that we had to drop in the course of discovering our fundamental nature. So the revelation shows the value and the truth of human life, of the human individual and of the human mind, which participates in the forms of the world.

If you really accept that you could lose everything, after a while, you realize that all the things you have given up do not truly exist in the way you thought. You don’t really have a car. Nobody actually has a car. You know why? Because they’re all Christ’s cars. He’s got all of them. If you really let go of all that you’ve got, that’s what you will find out; that all your cars belong to Christ. All your houses belong to Christ. All your parents belong to Christ. All your kids belong to Christ. And all the activities are Christ’s activities because there is only one truth. One unified total wholeness. This is what we can come to recognize. If we give up all that we think is real, we will see the truth of oneness. When that happens, it’s not that you will no longer see cars. For a while, maybe the car will disappear; maybe everything will disappear. That is the death, the crucifixion. Then there will be the resurrection, when you realize everything is back, but not back the way you thought of it before. The resurrection will come about out of the annihilation, the loss of everything, including your life, including everything you see around you. If you really let go of all that, you recognize that all is gone, all is dissolved in the Absolute. From there, can arise the resurrection, which is the Christ, which is the life of Christ, in which you recognize that everything around you is life itself, is life, harmony, love, gratitude.

And if you go further, you realize that you are connected with and in fact are everything. That’s what we call universal consciousness. You are the universe. The whole universe is the Logos, the Word. The universe is a beautiful harmony of everything as one being in constant transformation, one being in a constant state of resurrection. Even further, you realize that you are the mystery from which all of that comes. You can perceive the whole show, not just your personal show but the whole cosmic show, as something emerging and happening now. Not only do you emerge and transform, but the whole universe emerges and transforms. That state of transformation and change includes life and death and everything in between. All of this wonder is revealed through knowing who you are.