A Continuing Fiction

The Cranberry Tales
A Children’s Story for Adults, Too

Suppose you are asleep in your bed, and I were to enter the room. Would you be aware of my presence? Obviously not. But would there be any doubt of my presence there? Again, obviously not. Even so, what proof could convince you? Obviously none, for no matter how brilliant my argument, however crystal clear its formulation, as long as you remained asleep, it would fall on deaf ears.

Now suppose you awaken, and perceive me standing there. Would you become aware of my presence? Obviously so. What proof would you need then? Obviously none, for your experience itself, the experience of your own awareness, would be proof enough.

Imagine a production of William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. On the stage, a great drama unfolds, shaped by prejudice, youthful beauty, romance, joy, delight, love, fear, anger, despair, faith, death — the stuff of all our lives. But none of it is real. None of the characters is real, none of the emotions is real, none of the action actually occurs. There is no such person as “Romeo”, there is no such person as “Juliet”. They were never born, they never loved, they never died. It is all an illusion. The only reality in that context consists of Shakespeare as author, the actors as players, and ourselves as audience. All of those know the play is an illusion, and that all that is real is themselves. But still, the play is performed again and again, and again and again we laugh and we cry. As if it were real. Likewise, what you and we each call “my life” is thoroughly an illusion. Here, we do not truly know what is Real because each of us has taken on the identity of “me”, the principal character in “my life”. And just as neither “Romeo” nor “Juliet” can know Shakespeare, neither can the separate, separative (“I am me, and you aren't”) self of our lives know our Reality. For that, we must transcend the character, and recognize and resume our True Identity in and as and with (choose a preposition) the Author, the Source, the Supreme, the One (choose a label). That is the spiritual process, transforming our current sense of identity bit by bit until finally it is transcended altogether, and we “Remember I Am”. Then, we Realize we never were the character, that we have never been born and cannot die, and that What Is always was and always will be. In a word, Reality destroys illusion.

DISCLAIMER:
Inevitably and rightly, there is a lot on The Zoo Fence about scriptures considered sacred by various traditions. As you read those comments and observations, please understand that nothing written here is, or is intended to be, an academic consideration. I am not a theologian, biblical scholar, or historian. I am not an expert. In the context of this website, my interest in sacred writings is solely as a spiritual seeker who has undertaken a personal, inner journey for the Truth of who and what and where I am. I know that many of my statements, and perhaps even all of my conclusions, will not reflect, and perhaps may even contradict, current orthodoxy, theology, and history. I mean no disrespect by that, but it does not concern me, for again I am not an academic, and this is not an academic undertaking. For me, the scriptures of the world’s spiritual traditions are a guide and a tool and a vehicle which can facilitate and accelerate my own personal passage along the spiritual path only if I understand their message to me. Therefore, I take it to be my duty, even my sacred responsibility, to discover and understand their meaning to me personally, to decipher what the Universal Teacher intends for me to see in them and to do by them. Here, on The Zoo Fence, I share that with you, and I ask that you read it in that spirit.

Yulia Navalnaya & Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny



· Selections, Sources, and References ·

Note to item above: To us, it is “i am here not there, you are there not here, now not then.” To a Teacher all there ever is is “I AM HERE NOW” or simply “I AM” (Exodus & Shemot 3:14, Gita 9:17) and “I, the Self alone, Am” (Vasistha's Yoga). In a word, the non-dual “Self” is all there is and ever was; the dual universe we perceive is an illusion. Realizing that is Self-Realization.
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The Zoo Fence is Made in Maine
by a laughing cat