I believe in this reality of the world we see day to day, this world of work and play and rest, this world of offices and fields, of shining aspiration and shuddering loss, of space and of time. I believe in this world we live in, but also believe it is a poor reflection of a fuller reality, unbounded by our conventions of time or space or life. I believe this deeper reality is sentient and purposeful and loving in ways completely beyond our understanding.

This world we see with our eyes and even with our souls, is the thinnest veneer on that deeper reality. Our sorrows and our joys are a direct measure of how well this daily reality we are always constructing aligns with that broader, timeless real. Even that most human instinct to transcendence is a mere reflection of our connection to that place that is more like home than any place in this world.

Being of this world, wrapped in it, attached to it, means I can’t yet learn the language, the customs, the ways of that more complete world. But in my most still, most open, most present moments, I know it exists, know it is the foundation of everything else, more than I know one plus one equals two, more than I know time passes relentlessly for good or ill, more than I feel the pain of mortality and the joy of achievement.

What’s more, I know that deeper reality holds me, holds all of us, in its gentle embrace and carries me, carries all of us, forward to better things, even as we fail to see the progress. Its care and grace for us does not rely on our intelligence, our faith, our will, our labels, or even our actions. That care and grace are sufficient in themselves without reference to our striving or our falling short, always available, always more to the point than any of our current focus.

I believe in a deeper reality, beyond time, beyond words, beyond thought. I believe all that is best in me, in my life, in this world we share, springs from that deeper reality. And I believe that deeper reality persists in care, in grace, in being, unswayed by the on-going turbulence of the surfaces we manufacture.

Selah and Shanti