Borrowed Power

[Near silence] Right now... Your heart... Is beating. [Pause] Did you... Start it? [Long silence] ... Before you knew... What a heart... Was... It beat. Before you learned... How blood... Moves... It moved. Before you understood... A single thing... About Life... You... Were alive. [Very long pause] .... So... Where did... The power... Come from? [Soft warm drone appears] We say... My heart. My lungs. My brain. My body. My Life. [Pause] My... My... My... [Long silence] ... But ownership... Is not... Origination. [Pause] You can say... My electricity... When you turn on... A lamp. But the lamp... Did not... Create... The current. [Long pause] ... It received it. It expressed it. And while... The power... Was present... The lamp... Shone. [Very long silence] ... What happens... When the power... Isn't there? [Pause] The lamp... Remains. The bulb... Remains. The wire... Remains. [Pause] But the light... Is gone. [Long silence] .... Now... Look again... At the vessel. [Pause] The eyes... Can remain. The heart... Can remain. The brain... Can remain. The hands... Can remain. [Long pause] .... Yet when... Life... Is absent... None of them... Can make... Themselves... Live. [Very long silence] .... So... Was Life... Ever something... The vessel... Owned? [Music slowly widens] Scripture says... "He giveth to all... Life... And breath... And all things." [Pause] Giveth. [Long silence] ... And again... "Neither is worshipped... With men's hands... As though he needed... Any thing." [Pause] God... Needs nothing. [Pause] Yet gives... Life... To everything... Living. [Very long silence] .... Then perhaps... The body... Is not... The source. [Pause] Perhaps... It is... The expression. [Long silence] .... Like a lamp... Lit... By something... It did not... Create. [Pause] Like a wave... Moved... By an ocean... It cannot... Possess. [Pause] Like a breath... Arriving... Before you... Remember... To ask for it. [Very long silence] .... But... Be careful. [Pause] Don't turn... The analogy... Into another... Picture. [Long silence] We're asking... Something simpler. [Pause] Did you... Create... Your Life? [Very long silence] If not... Why... Do you call it... Mine? [Pause] Maybe... Mine... Simply means... The Life... I am presently... Experiencing. [Long silence] ... And if... Life is given... What happens... When we stop... Thinking... Of ourselves... As generators... And begin... Noticing... That we are... Living? [Music becomes warmer] There it is... Again. [Pause] Being. [Long silence] .... Not... I was. Not... I will be. [Pause] I... AM. [Very long silence] .... Before... I AM Brian. Before... I AM old. Before... I AM young. Before... I AM successful. Before... I AM afraid. [Pause] Before... Everything... That follows... There is... I AM. [Long silence] ... Being... Before description. [Pause] Life... Before ownership. [Pause] Power... Before the vessel... Calls it... Mine. [Music begins disappearing] And perhaps... That is why... Moses asked... For a name... And received... Something... Stranger... Than a name. [Long pause] .... "I AM... THAT I AM." [Very long silence] .... Not... I was. [Pause] Not... I might become. [Pause] I AM. [Extended silence] .... So right now... Without describing... What you are... Without naming... Who you are... Without asking... What you will become... [Pause] Notice... The simplest thing... You know. [Long silence] .... You... Are. [Very long silence] ..... Where... Did that... Being... Come from? [Pause] And does... The vessel... Produce Being? [Long silence] Or does Being... Give Life... To the vessel? [Extended silence] Don't answer. [Pause] Be. [Two minutes of warm dissolving ambience] Notice... What remains. [Silence]