Imagine a bowl, continuously curved, with no flat bottom.
At the center is rest and peace and no need for effort, where everything is the same in all directions. Equal everything everywhere.
Moving out of center, I begin to see “sides”: “this side” and “that side.” The farther I go, the clearer I see a separation of sides. Here, there. My side, their side. Right side, wrong side. Good side, evil side.
The farther I move from one side - in fear or opposition to what’s “over there” - the steeper the bowl’s contour and the more effort it takes to proceed. The higher I get, the harder it is for me to hold my ground and the harder it is to accept the thought of losing ground. I’m so high up, so opposed to the other side and slipping…slipping…as I’m pulled down and in toward the center.
And since the other side is in the same direction as the center, this benevolently unyielding downward and inward pull feels like the forces of “evil” trying to take me down. It feels like any move toward rest and peace is a deal with the devil where I’ll fall all the way into hell.
But I’m wrong.
I will not fall into hell.
I can only fall into heaven.
I have to climb into hell.
What I don’t realize is that, if I am out of center - indeed, if I am anything but completely given over to ‘what is’ - I am in hell now - a hell equivalent in every way to the hell I see on the other side - and heaven is between us.
Heaven is the natural resting place that will gather me up long before I ever reach the hell of the other side. This peaceful place lies at the lowest, most humble point in the contour, It’s the merciful end of the journey, the place toward which all things slope. It is the place I land when I am in total surrender and a place I can never leave without effort. It would take hardship for me to rise up the other side. It would take suffering just like the suffering I’m in right now as I cling, white-knuckled, to this high, steep side of the bowl.
And if I ever get to the top edge of the bowl (the absolute limit of ego and fear and pride and separation), it will be impossible for me to stay there. There isn’t anything to hold me because it’s completely false. It’s infinitely thin. So I’ll either fall back onto the slope side or, if I have any momentum, I’ll topple right out of the bowl and fall straight down to the bottom - the exact same level as the center of the bowl - but now outside the whole confused system where I will finally see the whole thing for what it is: an illusion - total humility experiencing complete oneness, completely in on the joke.
From either place (the center or the outside), I see that all extremes are the same thing: areas that are not the center, born of the center, sloping in toward the center.
All I have to do is let go (and not even that).
I can’t fail.
There is truly nothing to fear.
Which doesn’t mean I’ll always believe it. But now, when I’m afraid and seeking peace, I’ll know where peace is: right in the effortless center between me and the object of my confused fear.
In the eternally safe place I can’t help but tumble if I just let go.