It is the last step on the road toward… enlightenment. The most difficult too. 

  And I’ll tell you another thing. Once taken, it is the hardest to come back from… and explain to others. You are changed, and the language you are forced to use to communicate with others no longer serves to convey what it is you see and feel. 

  What is it you see and feel? 

  Here I go with the inadequate language again. 

  You see everything as what I’ve called The Great Passing Through. 

  Looking at the photo above you see the squirrel as a vehicle for The Great Passing Through, you see its every act as an expression of TGPT. And the grasses and shrub too are merely Passing Through from one generation to the next, as they’ve been doing since the dawn of time. And the acorn in the squirrel’s tiny beautifully dexterous hands is the tree’s expression of the Passing Through, particularly poignant as it has been dropped from the tree to be the seed of a new tree. And unsurprisingly the acorn has been employed by humankind as a very symbol for… wait for it… Life.

  Kind of like the Madonna and Child. No, exactly like it. The Great Passing Through from one generation to the next. From the deepest depths of the past to now and onward and onward and onward. 

  Here’s the thing, once you truly see that in the world and perhaps feel it Flowing Through yourself you are not the same anymore. Humankind’s ideas don’t matter anymore, you can no longer take sides in debates and arguments, or terribly tragic wars as are taking place today. 

  All you see is Life and a seemingly futile clashing of Great Passing Through streams. Like The Bhagavad Gita, where two warring clans who are actually just different branchings of the same Great Passing Through must fight.

  Last night I sat with old friends who were all intent on taking a side in the latest conflict roiling our world.

  I couldn’t take a side. 

  Because how do you explain in these horribly limited words that it is all One?