For many of us the title brings to mind the great Spielberg movie, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’ This post is definitely about a close encounter, but, with a nod to Rupert Spira, we could say a ‘closer than close’ encounter of the only kind.

Just as the images on the screen – spellbound humans exchanging hand signs with an endearing little alien – is just a temporary appearance and has no affect on the screen whatsoever, so to does consciousness, that which knows both the knower and the known, the witness and the observed, stand undisturbed by anything that occurs in it.

A closer look at our experience shows that there is only one thing going on – that there is no division between the experiencer and the experience – the seer and the seen, the hearer and the heard, the knower and the known. Can you find the point where the hearer ends and the sound begins? No. It is one seamless experience – hearing – that takes place in the boundless field of consciousness.

And where do we go to find this boundless field of consciousness?

The instant you realize that there is no direction you can go to get any closer to the original source of your being – where can a cloud go to find the sky? – the only thing that remains is an all-pervading stillness and peace that can best be described as love.

And this is as close as it gets.