The broad field of experience.

In our mind we ponder over past and present. We can do this endlessly, our thoughts seemingly without boundaries. Birth and death do not mark a beginning or an end, we can imagine - with or without scientific support - how it was earlier and how it will be in the future. This world inside our head appears so huge yet it exists only in thoughts, in illusions. This world is illusionary, it does not actually exist.

Without realizing it we are imprisoned by our thoughts. Usually we feel safe in that illusionary world in our mind.  For so long, so unfathomably long, we have lived in this enclosure that it does not occur to us to escape from it. On the contrary we are continually working on strengthening the walls and doors by means of new illusions, new dreadful thoughts, new longings and new fears.

We are so imprisoned in the world of our mind that we forget to use our physical senses. We do not really see, hear and feel any more. We sense the world and our fellow men mainly through the prejudices of our mind. We experience reality not as it truly is. We live like a butterfly in a cocoon afraid to come out, afraid to be born.

Then a time comes when there are no more options, when our emotions, our sadness or our happiness is so powerful that the cocoon in which we live is no longer strong enough to contain us. If we are in luck we can share our dilemma with an understanding friend so that we can relax and experience a feeling of happiness and peace. Our prejudices disappear for the time being and our senses are once again functional. We are united with the other, differences are pushed out of sight for the time being. We can call this a sense of wholeness.

Just like in this example we can feel a unity with everything in our surroundings, the world in which we live. These exceptional experiences are a threat to the enclosure in which we live. Through these experiences the walls crack and the prison doors open slightly. The light of reality starts to flow in, the butterfly comes to life.

Through meditation we can actively experience such a state of unity more and more often. Bringing our mind to rest by meditation and learning to get acquainted with our thoughts, also called our ego. Entering more and more into reality, while our ego defines less how we are, we can live in a broad, open field full of experiences. The butterfly is ready to spread its wings.