The wisest question we can ask ourselves is as follows:
Who am I?
We may answer the question by stating our name, but that is just a label, a composition of sounds put together to conveniently identify ourselves and others. We may look beyond this label and answer the question by saying "I am a human body, recycled bits of the universe that have come together to support a living being." But these bodies, these organs, these cells, are constantly dying, reproducing, and changing. Our bodies are in a constant state of change, and your body is not the same as it was one second ago, one minute ago, one year ago. You may think about the unique ego/identity that you use, and say "I am my thoughts." But what "hears" your thoughts, what receives them? Thoughts, conceptualizations, labels, emotions, they are all electrical activity in the brain. What receives all of your thoughts, feelings and emotions? You may look even deeper, and answer the question by saying "I am my mind." But how can you be your mind? Your mind has been shaped by other minds since the day you were born into this world out of your mothers womb. Your mind is the result of interacting with the collective mind throughout your whole life, learning, adapting, conceptualizing. Knowledge physically changes the structure of your brain, and thus your mind. You are not your mind, because your mind is a manifestation of the collective mind formed by all past actions, future aspirations, events, and thoughts. What is it that receives what the mind creates, that pays attention to it?
You keep peeling back the onion, so to speak, until you realize that you are not who you think you are. You realize that you cannot identify yourself with any of these aggregates, as they are in a state of constant change.
Has life stopped coming directly to you? The only thing that hasn’t changed is that you are here now, whoever “you” are.
So, who are you?
The "true self" is beyond labels, but can best be described as Nothingness. Behind your physical body, behind your labels, behind your thoughts, there is the Seer. Awareness. Oneness. You are that. An Infinite Void, filled with life, filled with energy, including the mind. You are a Mirror of Life, a Receiver, a Spirit.
Life is always coming to you from all directions in the Present. At the core of your being, you are a mirror of life. Your mind does not allow you to receive all that is coming to you, because it filters what is coming through your senses. Usually, this includes your sense of sight right in front of you and your thoughts. Evolution has programmed our minds to focus exclusively on these things for our survival, to adapt and to learn about an unfamiliar world. Now, we are familiar with our world. Our minds have shaped our world to suit our desires, to survive. Now, the mind is blocking out life, and we (mirrors of life) still spend most of our time giving life to our minds, getting caught up in our thoughts, and only focusing on what the mind thinks is important. Well, we don't have to miss out on the life that is coming to us anymore. We are not lost on an unfamiliar planet anymore.
The mind is the gatekeeper of life, because it focuses on what is perceived to be important. We know that life is coming from all directions, because we can sense it. We can feel it, smell it, and hear it. You feel the ground beneath your feet, the wind on your back. You hear sounds behind you, beside you, all around you. Life is not just coming to you from where your field of vision can perceive; it is coming to you from above, below, behind, and all around. Life is literally coming directly to you from all directions in the Present.
People don't realize they have two selves. You have a mind-self (false-self, ego/identity), and a spiritual-self (true-self, Mirror of life). Realize that you are the Mirror, a Spirit, Consciousness; this is your True Self. You give life to your mind; you pay attention to it. Your mind is like a valuable tool; when you don't need it, you can put it away, lay it down. Surrender to life. When you are thinking, you are your mind, because your mind is in between you and Life. We don't need to constantly think, worry, conceptualize, and label anymore, because we are missing most of the life that is coming to us right now. This is hard to realize, because evolution has programmed our minds to take control and drive our every action.
We can now see that we are not our minds, because as we receive life, we give life to the mind. We don't have to pay attention to the mind, give life to the mind. We can just let life in and reflect it back out, like a mirror.
When you get angry, it is because you give life to the anger created by the mind. When you worry, it is because you give life to the worry created by the mind. When you hate, it is because you give life to the hate created by the mind. When you are greedy, it is because you give life to the greed created by the mind. When you are sad, it is because you give life to the sadness created by the mind. When you envy, it is because you give life to the jealousy created by the mind. This is all going on between your mind-self and spiritual-self, true self. Life in the present is manipulated by the mind; the mind cannot create anything real. You don't have to pay attention to these negative thoughts, emotions, and feelings, these desires. If the mind creates something, it can stop creating it.
Don't get me wrong; the mind is the most valuable tool we have, as it helps us stay alert, survive, and function. A Spirit/Consciousness (what we are) could not get anything done without a mind.
Friends, it is time to realize that we can control our minds if we realize our true self. We need to put the Spirit in front of the mind, become spiritual beings. The mind has created the world we live in today, but right now, the mind is out of control, and we have become too dangerous for this to continue. We now have the technology to destroy ourselves, and our emotions and impulses are running wild. The mind will continue to do great things if we get it under control. We must see past the mind and embrace Oneness. We each must get control of our own mind, so that it transforms from our boss to our technical consultant, from our controlling overlord to our companion, from The Great Deceiver to our Guardian Angel. A mind in front of the Spirit is deceiving, but a mind serving Spirit is the most productive, most useful tool we have.
It's time to LIVE my friends. Lay down your burden, lay down your mind when it does not need to be active. Stop giving life to the illusions of ego, of false security, of separation. You are a MIRROR OF LIFE. Just let life in from all directions, and reflect it back out, like a mirror. This mirror, this Spirit, is the Unmoving Core of your being.
Life is giving itself to you unconditionally, coming directly to you from all directions, always, in the Present. Your senses are a window to the physical universe through which you receive life. You must become your senses to be fulfilled by life in the present. You are the universe experiencing the universe, receiving life through your senses at your own awareness level, which is filtered and manipulated by your mind. Without the mind blocking life, you receive all of life, and reflect it all back out without any mental intrusions. Being a spotless mirror of life is the ultimate state of consciousness. You must be like Nothing to receive/reflect Everything (Life).
Be aware of your breathing, always happening in the Present, but blocked out by the mind. Taste all the subtle flavors in the foods you eat that are usually ignored by your mind. Smell the aromas that are always there, but filtered by your mind. Feel the ground beneath your feet, the wind on your skin and through your hair, the warmth of the sun. Hear the birds chirp, the leaves rustle, the voices and laughter of humans, the intoxicating sounds of the pick hitting the guitar strings. See all the shades of green from the leaves in the trees to the moss on the ground. See life, listen to life, feel life, smell life, taste life.
All that you sense is in the Present. It is all for you, yet it doesn't belong to you. Life flows through you and all around you, surrounds you, just waiting for you to let it in.
Open up your Present.
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It seems to me that the most profound conscious experience a human can have, is the realization of Oneness, i.e., the realization that everything is actually One thing. Apparently we cannot perceive Oneness directly through our physical senses, but somehow Oneness can be realized as a discrete qualitative change of our individual consciousness; a bit like suddenly seeing the 3 dimensional image in a 2 dimensional holographic picture.
ReplyDeleteLogically, Oneness implies that only One physical entity exists in reality. Somehow this unitary entity dynamically produces our personal reality. Normally we perceive our world as a multitude of different physical entities, ranging from photons, quarks, atoms and molecules, to individual living organisms, planets and galaxies. Nevertheless, Oneness means that all perceived duality is ultimately a conscious illusion.
How can that be possible? Basically the answer must be that we are just a limited discontinuous conscious aspect or subset of this single continuous dynamic entity or total consciousness or God. In other words, our individual consciousness is a specific fractional projection of an underlying complex singular conscious dynamical system.
Those of you who are familiar with mathematical chaos theory, might recognize the above description of physical reality and Oneness, as a fractal phase projection in a state space, which can simply be produced by iterating a nonlinear differential equation or some other mathematical model of a continuous singular complex dynamical system.
This is the simplest possible explanation of reality in terms of simultaneous Oneness and the perceived duality or differences in our world. And it is both a unification of monistic and dualistic philosophies in Vedic (Hindu) religion, as well as a unification of quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general relativity theory in physics. Our consciousness is created as a series of microscopic singular quantum events that constitute an ordered discontinuous subset of all actual continuous states or positions of the underlying chaotic oscillation of a single entity or energy quantum. All perceived macroscopic forms, all cosmic order and all natural laws, are then a characteristic of the so called chaotic attractor of the underlying system.
Again, how can that be possible? Imagine a single conscious entity that describes a continuous complex nonlinear or chaotic trajectory in space at infinite speed and with infinite momentum. If this entity is fully conscious of its own infinite trajectory in space, it may also be conscious of all evolving order or structure in all possible discontinuous (stroboscopic) phase projections of its trajectory. Et voila, that must be the origin of our partial human consciousness and our perceived material world!
Finally, this theoretical model of reality and consciousness implies that at any moment, a physical human being is only a singular quantum event in space-time. I would not call that nothing, because it’s still an infinitesimal part of total consciousness, but it’s very close to nothing, I guess..
Regards,
P.