Your being is always shining. It does not need to be achieved or acquired or understood. Thinking and perceiving are what you do; being is what you are, and it never undergoes any change.
It is natural to feel that meditation is something that takes place from time to time, between the normal activities of the waking state. But in time there is a gradual reversal of this perspective, and you understand and feel that your natural condition is simply being, or being aware, and the waking state is something that takes place from time to time.
In fact, you cannot even say that the waking state takes place from time to time, because the time in which the waking state seems to take place is created, or rather imagined, by the process of thinking and perceiving that themselves constitute the waking state. In the absence of this activity of thinking and perceiving, there is no time.
Even in the presence of thinking and perceiving, there is no time; there is only the appearance of time, the illusion of time. In other words, there is only time for thinking; for being, there is eternity, and you are that.
Just as the screen does not exist in the time and space that seem to be real from the point of view of the characters in the movie, and yet it is their sole reality, so being, or being aware, does not exist in the time and space that seem to be real from your point of view as an apparently separate person, and yet it is your sole reality.
Therefore, for being, there is no purpose, no goal, no reason. All of these pertain to the person you seem to be. From your point of view as a person, there is a reason, a goal, a purpose. There is something to be understood, a goal to be achieved, something to become. But none of these pertain to being. That is why it is so peaceful there.
Imagine a man who gets up in the morning and has a shower. He comes out of the shower naked. He gets dressed in his policeman’s uniform and goes to work; however, he does not become a policeman. The man does not undergo any change when he gets dressed; he remains his naked body, which is always the same, within the limits of the metaphor.
Being a policeman is a combination of a uniform and a series of actions; these are what he does, not what he is. He remains his naked body throughout, and when he gets home at night and takes off his uniform, he does not suddenly become his naked body again. He does not cease being a policeman; he never was a policeman. He remains the same throughout.
It is the same with naked being. Naked being clothes itself in the activities of thinking and perceiving, and seems as a result to become a temporary, finite self, a person, without ever ceasing to be itself.
The activities of thinking and perceiving that constitute the person are what being does, not what it is. Naked being remains the same throughout; it never undergoes any change. It never becomes a person, and therefore never ceases being a person. It is always naked being. In fact, in the absence of thinking and perceiving, there is no ‘always’; naked being simply eternally is, and you are that. Although there is no ‘you’ to be that; there is just that.
Ideas of enlightenment, meditation, self-realisation, recognising your true nature, non-dual understanding, all these pertain to the person, the person that you seem to be. They are at best concessions to the person, but more usually a misunderstanding. Naked being knows nothing of such things. Abandon all these ideas. Be sensitive to any residual impulse to become, particularly to become enlightened, to understand, to know, to acquire, to evolve. These all pertain to the mind, not to you.
The idea that a person could become enlightened is at best a concession but almost always a misunderstanding. It is like believing that the sun lights up first thing in the morning. It is like believing that the earth has something to do that could light up the sun. The sun of being is eternally shining, and you are that.
Even to say ‘you are that’ is a concession; there is no ‘you’ or ‘I’ to be that. But at this stage, words lose their meaning, and we fall silent.
