Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

You know, I have had so many "spiritual" experiences and "enlightenments" over the last 40 years is I cannot count them. So many samadhis, so many openings, so many ecstasies, so many discoveries, so much truth and knowledge, I cannot count. 


But none of them mean so much to me now as the happiness I get from watching my cat Lakshmi eating from her bowl, then running over to me and climbing onto my chest. She loves me, and I her. She has cancer ansd I give her chemotherapy every other day in the form of a pill, many different kinds of shots for another medical condition, and syringes filled with yucky tasting medications. Yet every day she climbs up onto my chest and looks into my eyes. She loves me so. And I her. And this means much more to me than any of those samadhis and awakenings. They are only memories, or awarenesses that come and go easily as I pay a differing attention. But at this moment I am an ordinary man, a man who loves his cat, and whose cat loves him. 


What do I care of oneness, of unity consciousness, of the absolute? She does not care about such things, nor can I, when I look into her eyes. Just she and I.


I think if she did have all of those awakenings herself, she would throw them away, just so she could continue to look in my eyes like she always has, as cat to man, equals, sharing a moment.