A mystery lies at the heart of everything. We’re very rarely aware of this because of language, and the words and syntax we use every day.
Words are merely pointers, and yet we use them as though they were defining the thing. So, when we say the word ‘tree’ we believe we have somehow explained what this strange and wonderful ‘thing’ actually is.
We get further from the mystery when we use sentences, often starting with the first person pronoun, ‘I’. A simple sentence could be: I see a tree. But break this down, and the mystery starts to reveal itself, and it goes something like this: I (an undefined subject) see (unexplained phenomenon) a tree (an undefined object). Yet, when we speak sentences like this and without proper reflection, the world seems very solid, and there’s great certainty about everything.
Language and other methods of explication, such as mathematics and geometry, are the genesis of the sciences. Again, the conceit of knowing is played out, and this time we ‘know’ because we measure, calculate, define and predict—but the underlying mystery remains.
You are at the heart of the mystery; indeed, ‘you’, as an undefined subject, are the mystery itself. Just as the world is defined and made solid by language, so you are the creation of your past. Experiences that have been partially observed and understood seek to be played out in the world, and, in so doing, create ‘you’ as a by-product, as the Time-Light model explains.
The simple truth is that if you are unable to define what you are, you cannot fully understand anything that happens to you and around you. If you have defined yourself as a separate entity, and purely as a physical body, for example, you will suffer: you will suffer loss, disappointment, upsets, anger and, finally, death. You will suffer terribly when someone dies because you have not realised who, or what, you are, and therefore what the other is that has died, and what death is.
Ultimately, the mystery of you is beyond definition—but it is not beyond being and a knowing that is deeper than words.