What am I doing wrong? I feel like I am on the other side of a mirror, a looking-glass. When I invite others to join me, there is such a reluctance to step across.
I am aware that I am the one inviting, and perhaps that is the problem. I am aware more and more that I live in a world that is both historical and absolute. Largely through meditation, I am becoming familiar with a world that has such a wonderful aspect. It is becoming more and more apparent and obvious to me.
My experience of open-heartedness continues to grow. It is an aspect of me that I have learned only by dwelling on the absolute side of the mirror. This open-heartedness is an open invitation for others to join me. But invitation is not enough. I seem so inept in explaining to others how this aspect of the world can be so transformative and wonderful.
It is hard to give the invitation without it seeming a reflection of the typical, historical world. Anything I say is heard with historical ears, and it is hard to open those ears to the absolute side of the world. With friends and acquaintances it seems so hard to explain the depth of connection offered by stepping through the mirror into the absolute.
Sometimes I wonder if this is an aspect of the world that belongs only to me. I have entered it through my own way, and it may not be a passage others can follow. I wonder if I must be in this place by myself, while I also dwell in the historical world and live by its norms. I definitely want others to join me, but most seem unwilling.
It can be a strange and unfamiliar place. But it seems so clear to me the deeper into it I go. While I show the way, even the curious seem to falter and draw back.
It is getting more clear now, but I have been vaguely aware for a long time that I live in both the historical and absolute world. There have only been a few times that others have chosen to join me, and this is disappointing. I have been able to get only a few people to join me on the other side of the mirror. Maybe that is why I have kept one foot so firmly in the historical world.
As I look around, I see most people living in an imaginary world with little ability to move beyond the constructs created by society. It is wonderful that in my sangha, there are those who can feel their way beyond the conventions of normal living. I am grateful to have them as companions, as searchers in this absolute place that is sometimes brilliant and sometimes foggy.
I am aware that the rules are different on my absolute side of the mirror. Actually, there are no rules in the absolute world. The constraints are on the historical side of the mirror, and I have very adroitly lived by those rules most of my life. Decisions I have made, invitations I have turned down were made based on rules and not based on being anchored in the absolute.
On the absolute side of the mirror, everything is simply apparent and known. The historical world relies on rules to give guidance, perhaps to quiet minds so that people might know, for a moment, what it feels like to be anchored in an absolute world. Things seem so much more apparent and known on my absolute side of the mirror.
I wish I was better at offering invitations to others to join me.