The Unifying Factor: Trance, the “Magic Eye” and Recognizing the One

Some of the people I know just don’t understand what I see in trance. To them it is a jumble of sounds created for the consumer of drugs. I myself used to feel this way. Then one night some friends from my building invited me to a Paul Van Dyke festival in Central Park. I went, and since then I have understood the method of trance. Now when I try to convey my transformative experience I employ the magic eye analogy. You know those annoying “pictures” which seem to be a jumble of colors and shapes. Look closer! Don’t you see it? Do you see it? Do you see the statue, its right in front of you! Then exasperated you attempt to refocus your strained eyes uncrossing them, going back to a visual reality that comes naturally. Of course for some, after a while, they “get it”. From that point on it becomes obvious, a natural trance. Every religion and culture, Confucius, Moses, and the Sufi, ramble on about this one all encompassing consciousness, an idea that if meditated on either by spinning oneself around, not thinking about thinking , or really thinking, reveals an obvious truth. The truth being that we are really 1. The real question, then, is how do we access this awareness? (I tried crossing my eyes while dancing in a state ecstasy.) On the other hand if one is not aware of trance or the magic eye picture then they can never know the answer, because they don’t know that there’s a question. What do these “one” people see? Where is the evidence? I wonder if the Unifying Factor can be found by being aware that there is a common denominator in everything. After all if one must experience trance in order to appreciate it and stare at the magic eye to see, then to find something that is everything is a matter of just being awake.