Vachon Imagined

There is one reason why people uplift and harm other people.

It is the same reason we harm nature. Harm the planet upon which we live, the very planet that gives us the freedom to experience such remarkable scenery, distinct and awe-inspiring animals, trees, flowers, and things we cannot even name yet because we don’t have the language for them.

No scientist or explorer has come along to say, “This, folks, is an amoeba.”

There is nothing here yet.

No language.

No scientist.

Nothing.

And yet those who touch the nothing hear sounds of another melody. They experience explanations of another sort.

They are not leaving this world physically. You can still see their bodies. You can talk about their mistakes. You can feel their presence, which is your presence too. You can label them.

But before all of that, there is life.

And humans have—and are training their replacements to have—what I call double consciousness.

A consciousness that looks at what appears to be outside of itself and then places whatever it desires, fears, loves, or hates onto the other person.

This is where adulation and harm occur.

People walk too much in life and not enough apart from their judgments about it.

But there is a land of plenty beneath all of this.

It is the place where you reside.

And it is the place where you will reside again.

All life returns to it because life does not simply know its name.

It is its name.

Life happens.

That’s all that’s happening.

But when we become lost in our experience of it, we begin doing things that look like salvation to some and damnation to others.

Yet it is the same life.

And when the mind is purified of judgment, you don’t look at a tree and think, That’s a tree, therefore it is outside of myself. I can do whatever I want to it. As long as I thrive, as long as I can eat, as long as I can have luxury, it doesn’t matter.

You see what happens when the person is no longer in the room.

I want to put my fantasy onto that person, no matter who they are, because they are no longer in the room.

I want to put my adulation onto that person because they are no longer in the room.

I want to put my anger onto that person because they are no longer in the room.

Just me and my own consciousness, displayed for all the world to see.

And through the purification of love, you see intelligence.

You see life.

You see that the tree was never outside of you.

And once you see through double consciousness, once you see through judgment, you begin to see that all of it is.

The person you placed on a pedestal: life.

The person you sent to hell through punishment: life.

The animal.

The flower.

The tree.

The person you love.

The person you cannot stand.

Life.

And this life you gave a name is your own consciousness.

Not resisting that consciousness is the way home.

The way to God.

The way back to the ever-expanding life that no body, no person, and no tree can ever contain alone.