The view of totality allows all views—all realizations and teachings—to be valid and true. Each one of them reveals something about liberation, enlightenment, and awakening. And we can abide in one realization forever, but we don’t have to. Just because a particular realization is true does not mean only that is true. The view of totality shows us that this is true and that is true and there is no end to truth. It challenges not only our attachment to an ultimate realization but also our belief in the concept of an ultimate. This frees us to experience true nature manifesting other kinds of realizations.

Understanding the orientation of continual practice, the attitude of devotion to what is real, gets us closer to the mystery of the relationship between practice and realization. When we first learn to practice, we usually have an experience of ourselves practicing. As we come to more thoroughly understand the nature of the self and of reality, our sense of self transforms until, at some point, we realize that when one is practicing, when one is meditating, when one is inquiring, when one is chanting, it is not one particular individual that is practicing, it is the totality of all that there is that is practicing. The more continual our practice and the more unflagging our orientation toward reality, the more our understanding of who or what practices can shift from an identified self to the totality of reality.