Because of where it is. Things are hard to find for two reasons. Either they are too far — and you must travel. Or they are too close — and no travel helps, because every step is taken from them. What you are is hidden in the second way, perfectly hidden, hidden the way glasses are hidden from the one wearing them while he turns the house upside down looking. The eye sees everything except itself; the knife cuts everything except itself. Awareness knows everything except — no. Awareness knows everything, and is never among the things it knows. It is not in the inventory, because it is what the inventory appears in.

You have never seen it, and you have never seen anything without it.

So the mystics, who like to be exact, gave up calling it hidden and started calling it the open secret. It is not behind the curtain. It is the seeing of the curtain. It is not deep within you, despite the poetry — within implies a journey, and there is none to make. It is the most public thing there is, overlooked precisely because it is never absent. You notice your heartbeat only when it stumbles. Awareness never stumbles. So it was never once noticed — only used.