The Art of Not Arriving: In Case of Arrival (Humourologue)

The “I” casts off the illusion of “I” and yet remains “I.”
Such is the paradox of Self-Realisation.

— Ramana Maharshi

An epilogue for those who stayed too long, left too early, or never showed up in the first place.

Disclaimer:

No Absolutes were harmed in the making of this epilogue. Any resemblance to actual spiritual seekers (living or dissolving) is purely inevitable. 

Proceed at your own peril… with snacks, curiosity, irreverence and the willingness to stop reading immediately if your last shred of nondual solemnity begins to tremble in the face of its opposite.

And if it does tremble… notice the effort it takes to hold only one face of the whole. See how even “just stillness” must be defended as identity. See if you’re still safely you when the throne slips, when the silence laughs, when truth refuses to stay serious for comfort. And perhaps - let love reach back through the tremble.

If the previous parts made you feel spacious, tender and close to truth, this one might undo that with a grin. 

We begin before the beginning, just after everything had already ended.

There was once a rumor that something had been lost. 
No one could quite say what it was. Only that it was important, subtle, and probably your fault.

And so, you went looking for it. 
You were very sincere about it.

You read books with gold-foiled titles. 
You sat in retreats. 
You tried to breathe through your left nostril. 
You let go. You tried again. You forgot what you were letting go of, which was progress. Maybe.

At some point, you almost found it. 
You sat perfectly still for 47 minutes. Your spine aligned with something called “Source.” Your breath disappeared.  You became a cloud.

You thought:

“This is it.”

Which it was. 
Until you thought:

“I need to remember this.”

Which it wasn’t.

You called it Awareness. 
It didn’t call you back.

That hurt.

So you went deeper. 
Into lineage, into practice, into discipline. 
You fasted from distraction. 
You devoured paradox. 
You made vision boards about dissolving the self. 
You tried ayahuasca, therapy, and dating unavailable people.

Eventually, you found yourself in a strange place.

It looked like your living room. 
But something was… missing. 
You looked around and couldn’t find the seeker.

You thought:

“This can’t be it. It’s too… obvious.”

You waited for more thunder. 
More light. 
A stronger sense of closure.

But nothing closed. 
And nothing opened.

And still,  somehow, you were home…
as nothing and as everything.

You tried to tell a friend.

“There’s no destination,” you said, 
“And that table is you,” 
“And It’s all already here.”

They nodded politely and asked if you were still freelancing.

You said yes.
But meant the cosmos.

The funny thing is, you never actually left anything. 
There was no fall from grace. 
Just a slight misunderstanding of interior décor.

You mistook a very spacious silence 
for something broken.

You thought stillness was the prelude to something big, 
like a trailer for a spiritual blockbuster that never got released.

You assumed God was over there - 
glowing, hovering, possibly available for private sessions - 
because here just looked like dirty laundry and that same old ache in your chest.

But here is infinite. 
Unremarkably, wildly, irreversibly infinite.

And you are a very poetic misunderstanding. 
And the Absolute is very much in love with this entire performance.

You didn’t find yourself. 
You didn’t dissolve. 
No angels sang… 
or did they? 
You couldn’t quite say. 
You couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

You just noticed… 
the absence of the one who was trying.

The itch was gone. 
Reality blinked. And it was still just this.

The coffee. 
The dog barking. 
The “anxiety” in your chest. 
The shadow on the floor. 
The soft ache of being you, again. 
But somehow never having been.

And in that ordinary light, 
something laughed in the ruins… 
quietly. 
It sounded like you, 
humming as a bell of creation.

Nothing was lost. 
Nothing was found. 

Only the gasp of raw immediacy,
hanging unspoken, unfathomable - 
a vanishing edge,
without beginning or end.

This has been

The Art of Not Arriving.

In case of spiritual turbulence:

Breathe, as if you’ve always known.
Laugh, if loving laughter finds you home.

What’s real can’t break,
What’s false won’t wake.

You’re not too late.
You’ve not been tossed.
You’re exactly here. 
Not found, not lost.

You are being dreamed
by the dreamer you seek,
held in the hush
where words grow weak.

The ache of the search
was never untrue. 
Just longing to show
what’s already you.

When nothing’s denied,
not sorrow, not flame,
what’s left is the being
that never had name.

So if the mind whispers,
“Something’s not here,”
let that thought soften, 
and walk into fear.

For when all is welcomed,
without need to cling,
the ache of seeking
is revealed as the spring…

of the intimacy
with everything.

And so, no step
was ever wrong. 
There’s just this now,
where you belong.