Meditation sometimes produces surprising insights.  Today was no exception.  Practice is a journey without a destination.  I see that for many years I was climbing a ladder to reach enlightenment but the Self I was seeking was in a sack on my back and was with me all the while.  But for years I do not realise.  Each rung I touch I learn intimately and could retrace my steps.  Even when the rungs are left behind I remember how they felt and what I learned from their touch.  All the rungs seem important and are leading me to my goal.  But I don’t need to climb the ladder, I never did, except that as I climb I get nearer to realising this, until one day I wonder in just the right way. I take the sack off my back and I look inside and find the Self that has always been there.  I realise then that the journey was not necessary, and yet had I not climbed I would not have realised that the Self was always with me.  I never was the climber, or the ladder, or the journey.  Such is the strangeness of the practice.