As the enquiry deepens, one is introduced to the many subtle forms of conditioning – the pursuit of pleasure, of personal survival, the center of the universe being ‘me’. And with that center one attempts to impose oneself on life. Seeing the utter shallowness of this self-centered existence, one becomes aware of the collective conditioning – an attempt to give oneself meaning through a cause or philosophy, an attempt to expand the ‘me’ center, which is now ‘we’. And now this ‘we’ attempts to impose its views and ideas on the life around it. Seeing the mediocrity and futility of a life fixed on ‘me’ or ‘we’, one enquires deeper.

At this point in the enquiry, one needs a great intensity, because we are leaving behind the false security of tradition and recorded history, and approaching a life without fixed reference points.

Now one can see that mankind has attempted, though tradition and philosophies, through nations and language, through his activities, to provide a sense of security and meaning for himself – a sense of purpose – and repeatedly it has collapsed. We come to the point in our enquiry when we recognize that nothing we invent or create through our ideas will provide that we need. And yet we still yearn, we still need, and nothing that we can obtain through effort can relieve our yearning. That yearning is the passion, is the quality necessary for the further journey into life. When we yearn, we awaken a response. The response will always be gauged by the quality of our yearning. Love is the response when one yearns deeply – essence is the response to passion – God is a response to a full human being. When essence merges with passion, when a human being merges with God – a birth takes place.

“When you yearn to love, when you yearn to merge, when you yearn for a universal quality, you’ve also come to realize in that moment the limitation of what is man-made. When that yearning is taking place, when one has touched on stillness, in that moment something vital is born. The moment you understand, the moment you can see, the moment you can feel fully, is the moment that you can say you’re actually born, that life begins. And that life knows no fear and no mourning, and no projection. When you in fact are born, when you in fact are alive, then what you give birth to is also free, is also new.”

~ in that stillness… — Danny Castro