The Ultimate Mystery and the Ultimate Truth

life is a mystery. The true nature of the universe, and our true nature, is hidden from us. Teachers, prophets, the great sages of human kind, posses the hidden secret of the universe but only share it with the select few, the worthy ones, the ones who are prepared to receive the knowledge. I used to think so. Back in my “zen years” I would get exasperated with all the cryptic stories that ended a second before the culmination. The student would always see … something, but the story would not say what. “What did he realize? What happened? Why can’t they just say it?” I wondered. I was told the dharma was “deep and mysterious”, and those who understood it, the teachers, wouldn’t just say what it is. They would ask strange question and give silly riddles. I preferred straight, direct answers which, I thought, I could never get from them. And yet today morning, as I was finishing the newest Dan Brown’s book, “The symbol”, I read: “This information is powerful. The ancient mysteries can not be shouted from the rooftops. The mysteries are a flaming torch which, in the hands of a madman, can scorch the earth” and I thought “no, this is not so”. “Know ye not that ye are gods?” The Buddha said: “You are God yourself”, Jesus said: “the kingdom of God is within you” and “the works I can do, you can do … and greater”, the gnostics taught to “Abandon the search for God … instead, take yourself as the starting place.” “As above, so below” “Know thyself” “The secret hides within” “God created man in his own image” You are God yourself. How much clearer, how much simpler and more direct could this message be? Shouted from the rooftops, proclaimed by religions, prophets and philosophers, the mystery of who we are has been revealed and repeated over and over again. There is no danger in this knowledge. There is no danger in discovering the truth of who we are, for there is no pain, no fear, no destruction in God. Pain, anger, fear, exists where God has been forgotten, where who we are is forgotten. Being who we are, God, fully and completely, can not scorch the earth, it can only heal it. This knowledge is not a hidden mystery. There is nothing and no one, in this universe and beyond it, that has the power of hiding the truth of who we are from us – except for ourselves. The truth of who we are has been repeated over and over. It is not hidden from us. It is us who are hiding from the truth.