The way of the bird

1.28 "The illusion cannot give something more to reality, because reality is
at the base of everything that is."
All the fascinating places and magnificent scenery in the world, all the beautiful plants
and flowers, the enormous variety of species of animals and the multitudes of human
beings-none of them have any effect on the Self. They do not add anything to reality
when they appear and they do not take anything away from reality when they go away.
Reality, the Self, is the base of all that appears, the source. It remains full and complete in
Itself if there are a billion worlds, and it remains full and complete if there is no
manifestation at all. The Sanskrit prayer at the beginning of the Isha Upanishad expresses
this great truth:
Om purnamadah, purnamidam purnat purnamudacyate
Punasya purnamadaya purnamevavasisyate
This is complete, that is complete;
From completeness completeness came forth;
Taking completeness from completeness;
Adding completeness to completeness,
Completeness alone remains.
1.29 "When nothing is, all is only beliefs and concepts of the mind."
We live in an interpreted world. The world in itself has no meaning; it has only the
meaning that we give to it. A small child does not experience a world of things, of
separate objects, but experiences only itself. Gradually, as concepts and beliefs
accumulate, the world takes shape together with, and based on, the "I" sense. Nothing (no
thing) is outside of that sense of one's own existence. Everything (every thing) is
contained within it. The multiplicity of the apparent creation emerges from the "I" sense
like a great tree unfolding itself from a small seed. The appearance of the gross world
depends on the thoughts and concepts of the subtle world, and the appearance of the
subtle world depends in turn on the space and nothingness of the causal world. Before the
beginning, there is nothing there, and then, in the beginning, is "the Word." That word is
"I."
1.30 "The five elements that compose the body return to the five elements.
The power returns to the power. Only the name and form which are
illusion disappear."
When death occurs, the elements of the gross body go back to dust and ashes, while the
pure consciousness withdraws unstained by the individual form with which it was
identified. What we call death is limited to the name and form. How are name and form
illusion? Because they appear and disappear. If time could be accelerated by millions of
times, one would see a human being emerge from nothing, grow from infancy to
childhood to adulthood to old age and return to nothing in a matter of seconds. Even the
fame of a Shakespeare would disappear after a few minutes. Such an experience of time
would be unpleasant, because our senses are accustomed to a process of growth and