The No-Head Circle

“You are the One that includes the Many.”

Let’s test this claim. Stand in a circle with 3 to 10 people. Put your arms round each other so you are close and look down. Ask someone in the circle to read out the following:

You are looking down into a circle of bodies. Each person there is distinct from the others, each occupies their own space. They do not merge into ‘one’. Each person has their own name, age, nationality and so on. There we are separate and different from one another. There we are many.

Look at your own body – it fades out above your chest. You are headless. Your body emerges from your single Eye. You can see two sides to yourself – your body down there, and this single Eye from which your body emerges.

Now observe that the other bodies also fade out above their waists or chests into the same clear space that your body fades into. At the top of the circle are not many spaces, not many consciousnesses – just one. Here in this single Eye there are no dividing lines.

You are looking out of this boundless consciousness. As this consciousness you include everyone present. All those bodies disappear into and emerge out of your single Eye. They are within you. There we are many, here we are one.

Each of us has our own special point of view, our own thoughts and feelings. Most of this is hidden from others – I don’t know what you are thinking, nor do you know what I’m thinking. In this way we are distinct and different – we are mysteries to one another.

But at the top of the circle you are not different from me, are not hidden from me. Here I see not only Who I really am but Who you really are too. Here nothing divides us, nothing is held back or concealed. Here I see that you are, like me, open, clear, still, boundless…

At the top of the circle all our differences dissolve, all separation is overcome – without denying the precious differences revealed down there. Here the many are one, and the One is many.