Imagine two sponges immersed in the ocean. One says, “I am a sponge immersed in the ocean.” The other says, “I am the ocean expressing through this sponge.” Which one is right? It depends on where you place the “I“. If you place it on the sponge, as in, “I am a sponge…” you become the proverbial human being seeking a spiritual experience. If you place it on the ocean, as in, “I am the ocean…” you are the spiritual being having a human experience.
The sponge, a mortal that is subject to the elements of its environment, spends its life protecting and seeking to enhance its mortality. Its religion promises security against environmental forces that may prove destructive to its existence. Its education centers the success of its life as a sponge. It looks for the day when all sponges will cease competing for limited resources and the world of have and have-nots is a thing of the past.
The ocean, immortal and indestructible, shares none of these concerns. It sees its experience through the sponge as a unique opportunity to know life at the material plane, and it never loses sight of its true nature. It doesn’t have to express through the sponge, but it thrills at the opportunity.
Are you the sponge or are you the ocean? Do you identify yourself as your body and your circumstances, with your primary objective of achieving the status of a care-free sponge? Or, do you see yourself as the immortal soul expressing through this body and circumstances? Are you striving to become something more than you are, or are you living from the awareness of the unlimited being you have always been and you will always be? There isn’t a single issue in your life that is unaffected by your answer to these questions.
The ocean represents the soul. The sponge represents one of the countless life-forms through which the soul expresses. Does this mean that we have no individual identity, that in truth there are no sponges, no starfish, no coral, no seahorses? Does this mean that I, as a human being with a unique personality, appearance, and fingerprint, do not really exist? We ask again: Am I these things that define my physical presence, or do I have these things? Am I my body, or do I have a body? If I acknowledge that I have a body, then I ask, Who and what is this “I” that has this body? The answer? I am the ocean. I am not parceled out in the diversity through which I express. I am the unity of life behind all diversity.
We speak of the ideal of oneness while clinging to diversity. There is diversity in expression, but there is only a single source behind it all. We call this source the soul. John called it the Word, that creative mechanism that enables the universal to express as the personal, the undifferentiated to express as the particular, the very life that is the light of all. It is the single ocean that supports the diversity of life forms.
The highest objective of meditation is not to simply lower blood pressure and produce a relaxed sponge. Nor do we merely seek answers that will satisfy the questions of the confused sponge. The objective is to peer past the needs of the sponge and re-establish our identity as the ocean.
We do not deny our body, its material needs and circumstances. But by focusing only on fixing these, we deny the soul. We seek to squeeze unity out of short-sighted attempts to honor diversity. Diversity, as an object of worship, is a false god. We experience genuine oneness by consciously connecting with the soul in its native environment. This return to the soul does not answer the questions of the sponge; it eliminates them.
As you go through your day, think of yourself, not as a sponge seeking to make its way though the ocean, but as the ocean expressing through the sponge of your body and circumstances. You quickly notice that every problem you have is sponge related. How does the ocean view this sponge-related problem? Does it get upset? Is it fearful? Does it believe some needed element is missing? Is it confused by the actions of another sponge? No. By virtue of its indestructible nature, it holds an entirely different view. It is not drawn down into the clashes that often erupt in the realm of diversity.
To see from this perspective, you cannot be a sponge attempting to act as or think like the ocean. You must let go of your identity as a sponge and actually move into your experience as the ocean. You are not what you think. You are so much more. Try making this shift in self-perception and see for yourself how differently you look at this thing you call your life.
J Douglas Bottorff 