True, absolute silence and true, absolute love are not different. Absolute silent awareness overflows with simple, fulfilled absolute love. Objects - people, nature, emotions - may or may not appear. Objects are not needed and they are welcomed. The joy of this full silence is uncaused and unlimited. Always here, always discovering itself. It is the treasure, and it is hidden only when we refuse to keep quiet and find out who we are.

All of the searching, all of the struggling, all of the efforting to find your true self is naturally revealed in open, relaxed simplicity.

Revelation is beyond doctrines and belief systems. It is beyond everything imaginable. It is beyond because it is so close. Revelation is more direct than every word, for it arises out of the truth of who you are. This truth is all you have ever longed for, all you have ever needed.

I don't mean to say that you shouldn't take care of your body, or want to keep it from dying. But it doesn't have the same hold as when you totally identify yourself as the body. To recognize the tenderness of mortality, the fragility of your life form and all life forms, including cosmic life forms, is to be humbled in a deep way that is actually enlivening.

I'm a student of history and know that civilizations get lost - they are born and die - and so I recognize the tender mortality of our civilization. I'm not saying I'm separate from the despair of that, but I'm not controlled by the despair of that.

Trusting yourself is realizing yourself. Trusting life is realizing yourself as life. This is an invitation to our thinking minds to open in trust. We can trust that there is a knowing that is out of the realm of thoughts or emotions or circumstances. When we deeply trust, our minds open to discover what is true, regardless of what we are feeling. The deepest trust is a by-product of this true realization.

The word God, to me, is like the word enlightenment. It's become so corrupted by our ideas of what God is.