Robert Wolfe - Awakening to Infinite Presence, 2016

Reality is Present You are the nation’s president, and so the press photographers are waiting when you walk out of the hospital clinic after your annual physical exam. Back in your office that afternoon, you look at the photo on the front page of the newspaper. Your face appears blanched, taut, grim. You were told today that you have cancer.

Yesterday you were “well,” today you are “sick.” You look in your files for a campaign photo, of some months before: you are smiling, buoyant, glowing, in that photo.

You don’t proceed to compare the two pictures. The campaign photo does not reflect a current reality; it is not a true picture of anything which is vital. There is not a separate reality—such as your “wellness”—which exists today. The past has no viable presence; and so it cannot be said that the existing situation is a “worsening” of a situation which does not even exist. You toss the campaign photo in the waste paper basket.

A few weeks later, you return to the hospital clinic. The cancer is surgically removed. The next day’s newspaper photos show you waving cheerily as you return to your office.

Were you to now dig out your “sick” photo and compare it to today’s “well” photo, and note your “improvement,” you would be returning to the better/worse rollercoaster of contrasting the nonexistent to the existent.

The reality which exists is not a “better” or a “worse” reality: there is only one reality. To compare any other condition to the present condition is not a recognition of truth.

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