Haven't we all asked ourselves, "Is this all there is?" Don't we all want something or someone to fulfill us and give meaning to our lives? What is it that is really missing? What is it that will truly fulfill our longing?
What is lost is the full experience of unlimited consciousness and bliss absolute. But it is not really lost, it is only waiting to be awakened within. We might think of this transient ignorance as part of a cosmic game of hide-and-seek where our true Self hides in order to take form in this projection of time and space.
To illustrate, let's take the example of dreaming. When we dream, things appear solid and people appear real. What happens in the dream seems real, apparent pleasure and pain bring us joy or grief. When we awaken, we see that we have created an imaginary drama within our own consciousness and not any of it was truly real. In exactly the same way we shall awaken from the long-dream of this incarnation and realize that the vivid play upon the screen was merely a play of consciousness: whimsy of divine sport. The object of the game is to wake up before we die or our fascination with the miasma will bring us back to the dream to pick up where we left off.
The question now is how do we shake off this burden of limitation to reveal the splendor of our true being. The sage Vasishta teaches Rama: "When the mind is at peace and the heart leaps to the supreme truth, when all the disturbing thought-waves in the mind-stuff have subsided and there is unbroken flow of peace and the heart is filled with the bliss of the absolute, when thus the truth has been seen in the heart, then this very world becomes an abode of bliss." [Yoga Vasishta, II:33]
What Vasishta teaches Rama is what saints and sages of all cultures teach seekers after truth and liberation: attain unbroken flow of peace. Why this practice? What is so special about stilling the thought-waves in the mind?
Mastery of this state mimics the consciousness of the soul that has returned to its creator. When the body falls away the mind dissipates. What emerges from the cocoon of form, limitation and ignorance is full consciousness of the Universal Absolute. As we mimic our ultimate transcendence "then this very world becomes an abode of bliss." Our soul becomes liberated while still in the body, never to return to the dream world of pleasure and pain.
Even though the heart has attained the Truth, nothing has changed. As a Zen monk observed:
Before enlightenment
I cut wood and carried water.
After enlightenment
I cut wood and carried water.
Life in the world goes on but our concerns over loss and gain have melted into profound gratitude for living in the light of boundless eternal joy.