There Is Only One Taste

There is only One State, within which different states arise. There is only One Taste, through which different tastes flow. But One Taste itself neither comes nor goes; it is beyond motion and stillness, commotion and quiet, movement or rest. Look to the ends of the world, you will only find One Taste. Let your mind wander to the edge of the universe, you will only find One Taste. Let your awareness expand to infinity, you will still only find One Taste. 

So where is this amazing One Taste? Well, who is reading this page? Who is looking out from those eyes? Who is hearing with those ears? Who is seeing this world right now? That Seer, that ever-present Witness, which is your own immediate Self, stands on the edge of the nondual revelation in this and every moment. Rest as your very own Self; rest as the clear seeing of this page, this room, this world; rest as the vast pure Emptiness in which the entire world is arising . . . and then see if that world isn’t one with that Self. For in this moment of simple resting as the Witness, notice that the feeling of the Witness and the feeling of the world are one and the same feeling (“When I heard the bell ring, there was no I and no bell, just the ringing”). In the simple Feeling of Being, you are the World. 

Look! It’s just this. 

And once you taste One Taste, no matter how fleetingly at first, an entirely new motivation will arise from the depths of your very own being and become a constant atmosphere which your every impulse breathes, and that atmosphere is compassion. Once you taste One Taste, and see the fundamental problems of existence evaporate in the blazing sun of obviousness, you will never again be the same person, deep within your heart. And you will want—finally, profoundly, and most of all— that others, too, may be relieved of the burden of their sleep-walking dreams, relieved of the agony of the separate self, relieved of the inherent torture called time and the gruesome tragedy called space. 

No matter that lesser motivations will dog your path, no matter that anger and envy, shame and pity, pride and prejudice will remind you daily how much more you can always grow: still, and still, under it all, around it all, above it all, the heartbeat of compassion will resound. A constant cloud of caring will rain on your every parade. And you will be driven, in the best sense of the word, by this ruthless task- master, but only because you, eons ago, made a secret promise to let this motivation rule you until all souls are set free in the ocean of infinity.

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From Ken Wilber's book, One Taste