Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning in August of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.
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June 30th
Student: Is individual and personal truth the same as Absolute truth?
Michael: No. But personal truth is not separate from Absolute Truth.
The Absolute is beyond the contraction of the personal and yet it continually permeates, infuses and gives birth to it. All the time. It also is what the personal dies back into. All the time. This is exactly why we say that Samsara is not separate from Nirvana. Nirvana is the source and the resting place of Samsara. All the time.
Student: So is there something beyond personal vulnerability that allows us to trust in the perfection of this Absolute?
Michael: Sure. But in my experience it develops and then stabilizes only out of a stillness practice. There is this spontaneous recognition, it seems, that allows for us to see that there is no turning back after a certain point. We begin to trust that the Universe will support us totally, and impersonally, so to speak. We see that the background to everything has changed into something totally expansive and yet the I, or the personal, is still there even as it sees its inherent incompleteness.