I had a new understanding of what samsara might be recently. A concept not involving physical death and subsequent birth in another form but the death and birth which occurs every time we try to escape reality and are born back into it.

The idea goes like this. Uncomfortable with the present moment, we jump into the mind-stream seeking a way out. The mind dives and leaps like a dolphin in the deep ocean. It longs to discover a solution! Inevitably, not finding a solution, questions lead to more questions, and perhaps a lot of acting out. The body squirms with the sheer discomfort of seeking relief. It longs for relief! The mind whirls.

These patterns continue for a time, perhaps decades, until finally we realize that the mind can never give us the answer.

The mind is inherently not capable of reaching any answer which can satisfy it. It is a measuring tool. It cannot measure itself.

So finally, sick and tired of ‘thought’ and its limitations, we become a seeker. Spirituality seems to offer the promise of something deeper than the mind, for a state which transcends logic. Perhaps, by this stage, we are so tired of the mind even the cynicism which lives there is discarded.

For the seeker comes the ultimate question: Who Am I? Mooji calls this both ‘the ultimate question’ and ‘the master key.’

This question feeds back into the mind for another round, as we desperately try to figure it out by conventional reasoning. At last, something snaps. Something breaks. The mind, having gone round in a whirlwind wears itself out completely. And a glimpse of something much larger than the mind is perceived. Something in fact, in which the mind appears.

This is Reality, the Present Moment, Awareness, Perception, God, the Self whatever you want to call it. And so we are back to the beginning, reality, from which we tried to escape in the first place. In fact, we never went anywhere, we never left, but we appeared to!

So this cycle might be called samsara, the cycle of rebirth. The idea of ourselves as a person, with goals and dreams, who can get someone or needs to be fulfilled, is born every time we leap back into the mind stream. And it dies every time we come back to Reality.

The ultimate message seems to be that there is nowhere to go.

There is no one who can get anything.

There is no individual who can escape from this or find that.

Reality has no agenda, no hopes or fears, no time and no dimension.

Ultimately, it is Everything.

Everything leads us back to this.

There is no escape from this except into thought, which appears to lead us away from it.

In reality, even in thought this is all there is.

All roads lead here.

All there IS is this.