The World Moves Within You, Not You Within The World
Yesterday, as I walked across the parking lot to work, I was doing a regular self-inquiry process. Without warning, I suddenly shifted into a consciousness, into an awareness of a body walking across the parking lot, but "I" wasn't the body. The body was walking, but "I" wasn't the one doing the walking. I was a simple and pure awareness through which this body walked.
I didn't leave my body; this wasn't some astral trip. My awareness expanded to where my body, the parking lot, the cement on which I walked, the building I was walking towards, the clouds, the sky - they all existed within my consciousness or awareness. Everything my body's eyes saw as being outside me was also within me, within my awareness. You might say there was no distinction between within and without for this brief time. And the peace, and the delight! Oh my. It was though a new and different "I," a very fresh, pristine, and really, really alive "I" took my place.
No words can accurately explain this. Suffice it to say, there was a different "I" during this time. This "I" wasn't a person. In those moments, "I" was completely detached from Ken, the person and his body. "I" was still there, but not as a body or person. "I" was pure consciousness, pure awareness, within which Ken and the world existed as a kind of phenomena. It was almost like watching a movie going on within a bigger and more real Me, a bodiless, personless Awareness that was behind or beyond the movie, just watching.
Alas, the "movie" dissolved as soon as I became engaged in work. Thud! I was back in this old identity, this person, this body. I was back to being the doer again. Doer? Yeah, doer. We think we "do" everything - walking, driving, brushing our teeth, etc. My experience is that what we really are - Pure Awareness - doesn't do anything. It's the body that does everything. The body walks. The body drives the car. The body brushes it's teeth. How is this possible without a person?
Enter the doer. Because we, as Pure Consciousness, identity with the body (and not our pure I-Am-Awareness), we imagine we become the doer - what the body's doing. We now imagine we're a person. We can say "I am not a body," but is the meaning fully understood? If it's true that "I am not a body" (and I'm convinced of this), then how can I say "I'm driving," or "I'm brushing my teeth," or "I'm walking?" Who is that "I?" We have to identify with the body in order to be the doer! And that identification creates a person (often called the ego). That "I" is not the Real or spiritual "I."
This identity of being the doer, of being the body (whole or in part) acts like a prison - without actually being one. It's the core reason for human ignorance and all its self-inflicted suffering. We live with mistaken identities, a body/person identity. As a result, we imagine ourselves to be the opposite of what we really are! We take the world "out there" as being real and the inner universe (Pure Consciousness) as being imaginary.
Yesterday's experience, coupled with previous experiences, convince me even more that what we are is so far beyond how we usually identify ourselves, that this "normal" identity can only be an insane state. After all, what is insanity? If it's imagining yourself to be something you're not, and believing it fully and acting upon this false identity, then our "normal" human identity as being bodies and persons IS insane.
And if this other state, if this greater "I" is our real identity, than we are truly cheating ourselves by not knowing that spiritual "I," that Self that is Pure Being. Mistaking ourselves to be bodies and persons, of being the doers, is to be unaware of our true state of Being. It appears that liberation or enlightenment or salvation is simply the removal or demise of our ignorance.
Pure Consciousness or Awareness has no boundaries. It is Being without dimension. In other words, It is outside time and space, or better, it is spaceless and timeless. And what we call time and space is actually WITHIN our Being-Awareness. In short, Awareness-Being is Infinite and therefore all-inclusive. This can be experienced by anyone by taking the time to truly "be still and know."
In retrospect, I see where I had what I'll call a 'lip-service' spirituality. Don't take that negatively. I only mean that I believed and intellectually understood spiritual concepts. But it wasn't realized. Only now do I see the huge gulf between "mental spiritual concepts" and spiritual realization. It's so easy to get trapped at the level of mental concepts. And it is a trap for it can be mistaken for realization. I know because I've "been there, done that."
Lip-service spirituality doesn't and can't bring the peace that surpasses understanding (but it can be a stepping stone toward it). Only Realization can provide that everlasting peace. And Realization comes through earnest and continuous spiritual practice. Some practices are more direct than others. They all will and must lead to the realization of the happy answer to the question, "Who am I?"
So, where can you go when what you are is here, there, and everywhere? If we are this Pure Consciousness, then it is not the Self that moves within the world. It is the world that moves within the Self. That, in a nutshell, is what I briefly experienced yesterday.
As a result, my new prayer is that I may not be a visitor to this Real State of Being, but a Permanent Resident.
Namaste