In your life, out of all the moments and experiences, of all your deeds and perceived sins, you’re the only one who sees it all. You’re the only one who’s been there for everything, to witness every moment of it. Your prime relationship is, therefore, with yourself. I don’t mean this in a narcissistic way. But let’s face the truth: you are your prime witness. You alone have gone through every aspect of your life; seen each face, felt joy you couldn’t put into words, known every dark secret and all anxious imaginings, from beginning to end. Only you know how one of your favorite songs sounds in your ears, how a sunset through a veil of rain colors the sky in your eyes.

You’re not meant to look back in fond recollection on all the memories of all the joys that you’ve ever held. For those reminiscences can’t recapture the original moment. Your experience only serves to make you the person who has arrived at this particular instant. Memories only inform us of who we are today. They can’t supply the taste of the original experience once again.

Neither can living in the future satisfy your deep need to love and to be loved. For if you long for paradise, or to be with God, or for complete and utter nirvana, then you’re missing out, because that bliss already exists right this moment. The reward of eternity is found now, not in any ideal state to which you’ll return or toward which you journey. Enlightenment consists in acknowledging that you’re already enlightened. Perfect awareness is being aware that you’re already aware.

You are love. So how can you become love? You’re perfect. How can you become more perfect? To wake is simply to wake to this fact, and to disregard all the seeming evidence to the contrary. You are witness to it all.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within