Imagine there is a painter standing back, holding a paintbrush, looking in love and admiration at the masterpiece they have created. A beam of sunlight enters the room, and the colours are joyously dancing and flickering across the canvas. Now zoom in and focus on the colour red. See how it is ridged and shaped by the imprint left by the brush as it travelled across the page. Now zoom in again and see each grain of pigment, soft and quivering with the other grains around it to produce the colour we recognise as red. Zoom in once more, and now see a single molecule. Nucleus and electrons vibrating and oscillating as one to produce the frequency of red.
At the first level of awareness you are the molecule. At this early stage, we are coerced as soon as we are born, into the understanding that sovereignty comes from the defence at all costs of red. For you are an individual, different from everyone else, and the protection of your boundaries, your honour, and your family name prevents you from being lost in the mirage of colours that threaten the very existence of red. Conform, fit in, and don't stray out of line, for the ancestral reds that came before you and the reds that will come after you depend on your acquiescence for their survival.
At the second level of awareness there comes a slow realisation that other colours exist. You have seen them in your peripheral vision before, but the indoctrination of red has been strong and your focus has been on being the best red you can be - at the expense of others' success if need be. But now other colours are creeping into your vision. A hint of orange, a flash of pink, the smell of green. At first you are fearful, unsure, for you have been conditioned to believe in the might of the individual. Strength comes by associating with those who are like you, at the exclusion of all others.
And then comes the third level of awareness. We are all colours. Different hues, different wavelengths, unique functions and roles. And yet all colours. The rainbow is beautiful. Your mind cannot believe that for so long you were blind to the kaleidoscope of life all around you. Now that you can see it you feel enlightened, free, a form of bliss. You want to be all the colours at once, for they are all so magical, and each speaks so forcefully of how great it is to be them. So you try. Open up. Find it hard to choose, and attempt to follow them all.
At the fourth level of awareness a shadow falls across the painting. A darkness you were not ready for. Surely now in this enlightened state where you understand that all is one, such things should no longer happen. A heavy sadness descends, depression, confusion, blame. Why oh why did you have to see all the colours, open yourself up, and feel the expanse of the canvas beyond your own smear of paint. The desire to go back to sleep comes upon you strongly and the battle between being here and wanting to slide back down the scale overwhelms you. All you can see are the mistakes, the doings over, the rubbings out, the errors, the flaking and the fading. You don't like red anymore. Red is just causing you pain. But you cannot leave the canvas, you cannot change colour, you cannot reason with the painter. Though you try...or give up.
And so to the fifth level of awareness - alignment. I am the colour red. I chose this colour to create a reality that I wanted to experience in this lifetime. I see that I am red. I see that you are blue. And that's ok. Together we create a breathtaking landscape of shade and tone. My role here in this painting is to be red. Happiness cannot be achieved by wishing that I had chosen blue. Red is the perfect colour for the expression of Self that I wanted to have in this lifetime. So I will be the best red that I can be - this time not with service to self in mind, but with acceptance. Acceptance of my individual hue, acceptance of your variation, and acceptance of how it contributes to the painting. Now all my atoms are aligned with the colour red. All my grains of pigment emit the wavelength of red. Sometimes ruby, sometimes scarlet, sometimes rose, but always red. I am still aware of the vibrations of all the colours around me, because the same brush that laid me so lovingly upon this canvas created them too. And from this awareness comes the deeper understanding that across all my lives the choice of the whole palette of colours is open to me. I'm just taking them one at a time. So for now it doesn't matter what the other colours are doing or how amazing it might be to be blue. In this very moment, in my little patch of the painter's canvas...I am red.