Time Hath, My Lord, a Wallet At His Back, Wherein He Puts Alms For Oblivion.

"I seem to come back," say some, confused. It seems so important that there is always that stillness of mind, that the mind and its thoughts - oneness, "thought-ing" - are "stilled". The seeker of enlightenment, it seems, has to have something to do. "Be quiet long enough to see this," or meditate, or go to a meeting or "gathering of friends together" or a satsang where oneness, somehow, is more obvious. Join a live webcast or a virtual meeting in Second Life, or a three day residential, or a have few one-on-one sessions with an Advaita teacher, paid for or not, neo- or traditional. Even the edict to give up, the insistence that there is no one already, the maxim that any sort of practice fuels separation by emphasizing there is indeed a seeker who can do any of this, gives the seeker something to ponder, to avoid, to do.

Yet there is nothing wrong with any of this. Oneness is, whether the "me" drops away or not; whether there are "glimpses", and the small self seems to return, or not. Comfort is not the goal - there is no goal - not even enlightenment. But maybe it's a comfort to realise that this is, whether it is seen, or not, by no one. There are no goals, for goals need time, and there is no time; time is a convenience, just as the separate individual is. Oneness is, no matter what. Giving up may seem to happen. Or it may not. There is nothing to do but what is done. And if what is done is seeking, and what is felt is longing, and what is experienced is suffering, perhaps it is a comfort to know that even separation is oneness, in a particularly tricky guise. And if you're hopelessly separate, suffering and alone, perhaps it's an idea to treat yourself as you would some other separate-but-not individual you found to be suffering; that is, with compassion. Perhaps, too, there is comfort in the fact that there is no need to suffer and wait; it's not gonna get any more "one" than it is right here, and right now.