No1wakesup ("W") kindly responded to what was said in the last blog and I'm deeply humbled and appreciative. Thanks W.
Re "The 'watcher' or 'witnessing' of 'thoughts, feelings and whatever arises' without judgment, assessment, analysis. Without a value assigned such as this is good or that is bad and so on. It's a useful practice for cultivating detachment and its essential in many meditation traditions such as in Buddhism - on the 'path."
W: Throughout the years many teachers have offered such tools and practices for cultivating the absolute. Although these tools seem helpful they have never and will never actually be the source of "salvation" or "liberation." This goes for any technique whereby cultivation from the perspective state of unconsciousness is assumed to be possible.
If these tools actually worked then by this time (surface) everyone on this planet would be liberated, the ladder of which would have evolved simply by absorption and osmosis.
When we temporarily use the watcher or witness discipline for instance, the observing quality that is there witnessing or observing without judgment is not, for the most part, seeing or witnessing ITSELF long enough for something deeper to unfold. That is awareness does not endure long enough to expand and eventually break thru the last concrete ceiling of unconsciousness...it yet too busy in being the witness (which seems to be something someone is still doing) to truly see its own transcended position. That is, the witness is not WITNESSED. It seems that the witness gets stuck yet again in doing something we call being "aware."
Of course, there are instances where one who has studied and been on the apparent path had actually reached liberation. But if this liberation was authentic, then all that would be known would be that there was never anything to call reality before this liberation. There was absolutely nothing "you" or anyone else did to cause this liberation. Breaking down or "dismantling" the mind has nothing to do with this liberation.
That apparent progress in maintained within in the walls of duality. It is not something "you do." That apparent process or dismantling happens without effort, of it's own accord when this shift truly occurs. I know some will disagree,,and that's fine,,, but where is that awareness that beliefs it can dismantle? Is it truly selfless, without position or identity of any kind? If you answer yes, then why is there something (or someone) still there believing it has to dismantle anything? It's as if we demand our biography in the search to that which has no story.
"Lessening your ego" is only a part of that which still believes it has to strip something away from itself when there is no self for anything to be stripped away from. When this is done, there is someone still apparently there saying "Yes... most of my ego is gone." Who is there to say that?
"Partial" liberation or enlightenment is a myth. This idea belongs to and seems to be a luxury for the mind still in play... like an unconscious buffer which helps prolong a final confrontation of the unmasking of everything one sees as there individuality and existence. When IT is known, without "anyone" knowing it, it will be seen that all "effort" actually repelled that which was otherwise spontaneous and acausal. Back when most of these principles and techniques where used life was more simplistic. Not that there where less wars, plagues and famine. It is simply that in society today there is an avalanche of sensory candy.
We are bombarded daily via radio, TV and computers. There is simply too much busyness happening today. Maybe these tools where better adapted and absorbed by a mind which didn't have the more stronger traits of possession, greed and identity. Again, there are those who will claim that such teachings and practices have offered much peace. But in most cases even this "peace" is fleeting due to it's dualistic counterpart of non-peace or suffering. The actual feeling of peace that resonates is authentic, it is the filtering of it which brings forth further attachment and identification. In this way, we believe we have to maintain it or return to it over and over again.
Re "There must be liberation even from the antedote."
W: In the end, to know this conscious source directly, it seems from the minds perspective, you must not only transcend the mind but also go beyond the tool, technique or method itself. As of yet, very few who are "seeking" can do this effectively. This of course, is because your mind meets you with a whole onslaught of interpretational and processed conclusions of what this state of consciousness must be like. It's busy explaining and interpreting away that which is without explanation and interpretation. By attaching itself to the tool itself and not relinquishing it's fundamental use, the mind finds a false hope in the possible salvation from itself. It seems we must first depart from the thinking process (mind) in order to fully know the totality of consciousness and yet this is the paradox of all paradox.
You must move into that which is completely irrelevant to identity, form and experience as you know it to be. You are expected to go into that where EVERYTHING that gives you a sense of security, certainty and sense of self is.....NO MORE.
It is that which has been built up over the years.. security, certainty, sense of self, which is itself the illusion. This is why these "tools" and "techniques" where never meant to be taken literally. They where simply to be heard, transparently acted upon and then left behind. The only apparent problem is and has always been the common obstacle that from those who have heard only few could really listen and from those who could listen only very few have acted and from those few who have acted, most have not left behind.
It seems we are stuck and totally dependent upon these methods and tools and hence, from the minds perspective, we fail to move beyond them. We expect to move beyond these tools without letting them go. You cannot take them with you. They are a part of and direct link to what is false in you. When they become planned and habit forming, the main purpose of there use has been missed. We narrow and isolate the "experience" of consciousness by limiting it to a few, anticipated daily tools and methods in time. Blessings
Thanks W.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
The Watcher and Choice
The 'watcher' or 'witnessing' of 'thoughts, feelings and whatever arises' without judgement, assessment, anaylsis. Without a value assigned such as this is good or that is bad and so on. It's a useful practise for cultivating detatchment and its essential in many meditation traditions such as in Buddhism - on the 'path.'
Chip, a wonderful teacher, recommended the same to me some time ago and it was appreciated. The least line of resistance for many to cling to anything. People, thoughts, feelings, experiences, memories, roles as parent or child, high flying career person and often making it into something 'we' like, enjoy and want more of until boredom or need for change kicks in and them another object sticks to mind.
Whilst the 'watcher' is useful there is a subtle point that is easily be overlooked. For years during Buddhist practices, assuming the 'wisdom' of the 'watcher' was a given - as wise teachers and sages recommended it - 'thinking' well there's must be something to it.
Ironically I'd overlooked this insightful point made by 'no1wakesup':
"Yes, ...the mind is very good, if not awesome at hiding the absurdity of itself as an authentic existence. Even if we "watch our thoughts" aside from the temporary and fleeting( and dualistic)"gap' that one experiences, there is still a "choice" to be made.
Choice is a part of what actually hinders the un obstructive view where no choice exist. Choice is a primordial aspect of duality. It offers a good and bad or right and wrong "choice." The very foundation of choice lies upon the back drop of either gaining pleasure or avoiding pain...all of the mind. Of course, on the surface, choice seems to be a very rudimentary necessity to the apparent life one lives...it seems practical. But where you believe a real or calculated decision was needed...it never was.
The natural way is always in front of you but unconsciousness turns it into a struggle, a great task or simply something that "I" have to determine. Thought or the process of thought which we are so identified with has deeper roots. For this reason, " the veil is lifted from that which hides behind thoughts" is usually that which is seldom seen in it's totality. "Who" would want to go to that place where the conceptual and time bounded me is no where to be found. Arriving at this precipice is the psychological equivalent of jumping off a plane without a parachute. Death is fully accepted. Then it is seen by no-one that death was itself only a myth or an idea."
Seems there are no limits to the subtle tricks of the mind. Whilst the 'watcher' or 'witness' is essential on the path as an antedote to attachments as Trungpa Rinpoche quoted a sage once with:
"There must be liberation even from the antedote."
Chip, a wonderful teacher, recommended the same to me some time ago and it was appreciated. The least line of resistance for many to cling to anything. People, thoughts, feelings, experiences, memories, roles as parent or child, high flying career person and often making it into something 'we' like, enjoy and want more of until boredom or need for change kicks in and them another object sticks to mind.
Whilst the 'watcher' is useful there is a subtle point that is easily be overlooked. For years during Buddhist practices, assuming the 'wisdom' of the 'watcher' was a given - as wise teachers and sages recommended it - 'thinking' well there's must be something to it.
Ironically I'd overlooked this insightful point made by 'no1wakesup':
"Yes, ...the mind is very good, if not awesome at hiding the absurdity of itself as an authentic existence. Even if we "watch our thoughts" aside from the temporary and fleeting( and dualistic)"gap' that one experiences, there is still a "choice" to be made.
Choice is a part of what actually hinders the un obstructive view where no choice exist. Choice is a primordial aspect of duality. It offers a good and bad or right and wrong "choice." The very foundation of choice lies upon the back drop of either gaining pleasure or avoiding pain...all of the mind. Of course, on the surface, choice seems to be a very rudimentary necessity to the apparent life one lives...it seems practical. But where you believe a real or calculated decision was needed...it never was.
The natural way is always in front of you but unconsciousness turns it into a struggle, a great task or simply something that "I" have to determine. Thought or the process of thought which we are so identified with has deeper roots. For this reason, " the veil is lifted from that which hides behind thoughts" is usually that which is seldom seen in it's totality. "Who" would want to go to that place where the conceptual and time bounded me is no where to be found. Arriving at this precipice is the psychological equivalent of jumping off a plane without a parachute. Death is fully accepted. Then it is seen by no-one that death was itself only a myth or an idea."
Seems there are no limits to the subtle tricks of the mind. Whilst the 'watcher' or 'witness' is essential on the path as an antedote to attachments as Trungpa Rinpoche quoted a sage once with:
"There must be liberation even from the antedote."
Shift Seen by No-One
no1wakesup shared something some weeks ago and thought it of value to note:
"On or before this day of shift, there was no search. That is, on the surface of my known existence, I was on no "path" consciously. I wasn't looking for "GOD" nor was this consciousness (absolute) looking for "me" as many love to think.
How could it ...It already is all there IS with no search needed. This consciousness was already me but the solid and separate identity surrounding that obviousness could not see IT. It was simply a matter of recognizing the futility and illusion of a separate identity in place obstructing that which already IS. This recognition was made from that which IS..illusion cannot make such a recognition.
The experience (which is only a mind-happening thing) was actually very physical. There is a dying and yet a survival of that death. Not a death via a surrender that first comes about from the ego itself. Something else is seen and triggered first. At best, there was a transparent seeing, naked of identity, which IS, absolute, consciousness etc.
There is a catalyst there which allows this to unfold but this catalyst is not of or by the minds misrepresentation or view of the world. The mind has nothing to do with this shift. That which "IS" is the catalyst. It is ALWAYS there and when that which is individualistically solid and all important is removed or set aside by this seeing, all that is recognized by no-one is that which has always been...a naked isness without identity, mind or form.
At the time of this shift-collapse, January 4, 2001, what was living in the space of identity and existence was nothing more than the continuous "end product" of a perpetual filtering process. A manufacturing, if you will, of something which maintained a solid, yet unconscious belief in the idea of "me" and "my" life.
Like anyone else, I had what can best be described as an ordinary life. I spent most of my nights working as a restaurant manager. I had some leisure time towards the end of my shift to read books that had peaked my interest. One of these books was titled "a rich man's secret." Originally, I had picked up this book solely for the apparent purpose of material gain.
It was a rich man's secret and my greedy self jumped at the chance to get it and add it to my ever-growing arsenal of "entrepreneurial" goodies. However, to my surprise, this book did not contain a "secret" to monetary riches and manipulative power. Instead, it had a completely different secret or tale to tell.
My interest steamed from the books premise that there was something very wrong with the way people think. All people. That essentially, we live our lives under this falsehood of thinking and completely identify ourselves as these thoughts. Thoughts that are so incessant and consuming that they become the very fabric of out existence. In this process, who we are not somehow veils from us what actually IS, as we move through this life oblivious that we are even here.
These where new and powerful ideas. I had never read or heard of such things before. These concepts began to shock my senses. Was I understanding correctly as the books said? Are we, as a race, sleeping for the most part even in our supposed wakened state? Could it be that there is something else, another reality which was genuine? Another reality which was simply hidden from me, the world, all this time? Could it be as this book says, "That we are not our thoughts and we are only to observe them?" As the main character in this story pondered, I too asked myself these same questions. To which my mind shouted back, "no way, It can't be,,,this is only a book telling a fictional story...I control what I say!".
I contemplated these ideas for some time. As I continued to read, I eventually found the main character of this story frustrated and angry at himself. He had been given these same ideas and although he tried, he found it very hard to simply "watch his thoughts" He had realized a short time after he woke up one morning that he had again been "lost in thought." After regaining his composure, he remembered what the old wise women from the story had instructed him to do just the day before. Her instructions where "not to react but only watch your thoughts." Then in the next paragraph, I read what led to be the shift-collapse of everything I thought to be real in my life. As the main character considers, "No wonder nothing knew enters my mind, I'm so busy at the beck and call of these thoughts that I don't even see, there is no room for anything knew. I'm never present enough to see it anyway!"
After reading this statement something very powerful struck a cord in me. As I read the sentence again and for no apparent reason, I started looking at the "I'm" in this sentence as the "I'm" in my life. I started to see this "I'm" as a separate but true and authentic reality in myself, which up until this point had been kept unnoticed behind "these thoughts."
Simultaneously, I also recognized "these thoughts" as the main source, the only source actually responsible for and constantly perpetuating what I believed was my existence for all these years. In doing this, I started to expose these thoughts for the falsehood that they were. Without putting it into words, I had somehow to my astonishment, recognized the heavy and constant burden of these thoughts. As if beginning to find myself out, as if finding a thief hiding in my home, I recognized the cycle of this unrelenting thinker and the life it played out for me. Furthermore, it was from this completely separate perspective that this "I'm" within me was now deeply present and watching it all. "Of course! As it if confirmed deeply within, I started to realize that who I really was, this true "I'm," was absent solely because this incessant thinking mind was and had always been in the way, constantly and perpetually withholding an authentic conscious reality.
Within a few moments, a sharp and clearly defined separation had started to take place within me. A vast widening commenced resulting in the clear division between the "I'm," the true self, which had always been there but gone undetected and the "thinking me" which was now exposed and which was the perceiving factor behind the foundation of my existence. Like a black dot on white paper, the wider this separation became, the more obvious and individualized this "thinking me" had become. There was a witnessing to the separation in these two ways of living. I began to re-identify that which was the false representation of my life from a now more predominate awareness within and the true experience and division of the two had become clear.
As I put the book down, there was even deeper insight as I noticed everything around me start to slow down. Then abruptly, everything came to a complete halt. Suddenly, I was jarred into complete and crisp attention as if my consciousness had been jolted out of it's preoccupied and bounded existence of the mind. Without interpretation, I became aware of where I was for the first time. The VCR of my life, which had never stopped playing was now abruptly put on "pause" and all thinking had stopped. It was as if you where racing in a race car and then suddenly shifting to neutral, yet the car is still going and the motor is still on. It's just no longer racing. Immediately following this, in the front part of my head, I heard what could best be described as a very loud and crisp "pop" ( if you ever played on a pin ball machine, it was very much like the sound you heard when you win an extra ball or credit but enormously amplified) Having been so localized in it's origin, I knew this resonating sound had clearly come from inside of me. Following this, although physically I did not move, I felt my entire body falling backwards combined simultaneously with the sensation of everything around me rushing forward.
This strange and as I began to think again, abnormal experience left me very concerned. As if interrupted, a thought told me "something is seriously wrong here. What just happened? Did something seriously go wrong physically in my head or am I just going mad?" Then more thoughts came, "NO! Something has seriously gone wrong. Maybe you just witnessed some type of arterial implosion or worse yet, maybe you just experienced an aneurysm!" I grew more uncertain and more afraid as another thought confirmed with absolute authority, "Yes, That's it, you have just experienced the beginning of an aneurysm and most likely, internal bleeding has begun."
At that very moment, the darkest and most excruciating terror gripped my entire body. I had never experience nor thought could ever exist such gut-wrenching fear. Disoriented and not having a clear sense of myself I tried to find solid ground. Extending my arms and pushing my body away from the desk, I attempted to position my feet. In what seemed like hours but where only seconds, I became catatonic in this fear as I started to cry. It was at this point that I absolutely knew I was going to die. As I uncontrollably trembled all over, I became more frantic and desperate because I had just realized I wouldn't even have time to call my daughter Amanda to say good-bye. I was certain that death was coming that fast. It was an ongoing, searing pain of anguish which had become unbearable...I wanted out.
Fully accepting the predicament of my coming end, I dropped my head back on the chair and let my entire body go. I then said with an indescribable humility "God, if you really exist, and I'm to die right now, I'm asking you to take me, take all of me, I totally leave myself in your hands." It was no sooner than when I finished uttering those words that the most profound presence of love and peace poured over me, saturating my entire body. Totally embraced in this presence I witnessed the most unimaginable phenomenon take place. Literally, In my head, as I sat in that chair, a draining took place very much like a stopped up drain becoming unclogged again. It was as if everything I knew as my reality, all knowledge, all importance and certainty of myself and my existence had collapsed. Following this, there was clear and total emptiness. In this total emptiness there was more peace. Then behind this, without the formation of any words, the filling of the most incredible insight ensued, deeply sensing that everything was understood. It was unusual realization that I was knowing something, recalling something deeply familiar without ever physically or mentally experiencing it. I didn't remember or recall any particular memory of an identity or experience in a past life. But more profoundly and fundamentally was the obviousness now of the one subtle and pure reality that has always been. In this naked realization I simply knew I had been here before.
As I looked around the office, it felt very much as if just waking up from a long dormant but restful sleep. Completely alert in this wakefulness, surprisingly, I realized that I had awakened from a sleep which spanned almost 32 years. Then as I looked at the desk, the phone and everything around me, I noticed that all these things became surreal. Every object around me became objectless. They still had there shapes but the lines bordering these shapes had somehow become unimportant and un predominate. There was no solidity factor to them. As if the attention had shifted from these objects and there boundaries and instead became materially irrelevant. The "separateness" of these objects dissipated and instead shared in one collective field of energy. When I say "field of energy" I mean literally and precisely that. As if gazing upon a channel with no feed, I saw the interplay and constant interconnection of all things. And the amazing thing was that I was sharing in that same field. I was this field of energy. It was the direct experience of knowing the intimate nature of everything in which my now awakened reality was immersed and fused. I was all THIS and IT was all there was. There is no identity in it,,,it simply IS. All there was left was this and no-one there to know it.
The drying tears of despair which had earlier come down my cheeks were now accompanied by a smile that came upon my face as the most profound realization became evident, "this is god..all of this is god." I didn't believe this or have faith that it was so, no such thing was required or needed. It was simply known. Nor could I entertain a preconditioned idea or image of what I thought this god would eventually be like. That idea had died along with "who" I had thought I was. This god had no face, no identity, no boundaries and no religion. For the deepest knowing I could ever experience turned out to be the eternal knowing of the god (conscious reality) within me. Surfacing what had always been there, giving total and complete reality and no longer was I a buried fraction of it.
I knew that night in the office, in that moment, it was the ending of me, the individual me I had always thought myself to be. As strange as it may seem the "man" in me had finished. That solid and prideful identity and all that it perceived to be as it's existence and therefor reality, was no more. All that remained was that which was always there, a pure consciousness in it's totality belonging to no-one.
Post shift, events evolved in a way for me which allowed what happened, on the surface anyway, to become clear as far as what we perceive in our manifested experience. It actuality, it made no difference to what was now "seeing" because it was all that was left, and it was fine just like that. But from an understanding of what was known (knowledge ) about what had happened, it was clear. In the hours, days and months after this shift-collapse many things occurred that could best be described as miracles. I knew that what ever had always been in the way had now collapsed and the flood gates of all possibilities had opened.
Blessings"
"On or before this day of shift, there was no search. That is, on the surface of my known existence, I was on no "path" consciously. I wasn't looking for "GOD" nor was this consciousness (absolute) looking for "me" as many love to think.
How could it ...It already is all there IS with no search needed. This consciousness was already me but the solid and separate identity surrounding that obviousness could not see IT. It was simply a matter of recognizing the futility and illusion of a separate identity in place obstructing that which already IS. This recognition was made from that which IS..illusion cannot make such a recognition.
The experience (which is only a mind-happening thing) was actually very physical. There is a dying and yet a survival of that death. Not a death via a surrender that first comes about from the ego itself. Something else is seen and triggered first. At best, there was a transparent seeing, naked of identity, which IS, absolute, consciousness etc.
There is a catalyst there which allows this to unfold but this catalyst is not of or by the minds misrepresentation or view of the world. The mind has nothing to do with this shift. That which "IS" is the catalyst. It is ALWAYS there and when that which is individualistically solid and all important is removed or set aside by this seeing, all that is recognized by no-one is that which has always been...a naked isness without identity, mind or form.
At the time of this shift-collapse, January 4, 2001, what was living in the space of identity and existence was nothing more than the continuous "end product" of a perpetual filtering process. A manufacturing, if you will, of something which maintained a solid, yet unconscious belief in the idea of "me" and "my" life.
Like anyone else, I had what can best be described as an ordinary life. I spent most of my nights working as a restaurant manager. I had some leisure time towards the end of my shift to read books that had peaked my interest. One of these books was titled "a rich man's secret." Originally, I had picked up this book solely for the apparent purpose of material gain.
It was a rich man's secret and my greedy self jumped at the chance to get it and add it to my ever-growing arsenal of "entrepreneurial" goodies. However, to my surprise, this book did not contain a "secret" to monetary riches and manipulative power. Instead, it had a completely different secret or tale to tell.
My interest steamed from the books premise that there was something very wrong with the way people think. All people. That essentially, we live our lives under this falsehood of thinking and completely identify ourselves as these thoughts. Thoughts that are so incessant and consuming that they become the very fabric of out existence. In this process, who we are not somehow veils from us what actually IS, as we move through this life oblivious that we are even here.
These where new and powerful ideas. I had never read or heard of such things before. These concepts began to shock my senses. Was I understanding correctly as the books said? Are we, as a race, sleeping for the most part even in our supposed wakened state? Could it be that there is something else, another reality which was genuine? Another reality which was simply hidden from me, the world, all this time? Could it be as this book says, "That we are not our thoughts and we are only to observe them?" As the main character in this story pondered, I too asked myself these same questions. To which my mind shouted back, "no way, It can't be,,,this is only a book telling a fictional story...I control what I say!".
I contemplated these ideas for some time. As I continued to read, I eventually found the main character of this story frustrated and angry at himself. He had been given these same ideas and although he tried, he found it very hard to simply "watch his thoughts" He had realized a short time after he woke up one morning that he had again been "lost in thought." After regaining his composure, he remembered what the old wise women from the story had instructed him to do just the day before. Her instructions where "not to react but only watch your thoughts." Then in the next paragraph, I read what led to be the shift-collapse of everything I thought to be real in my life. As the main character considers, "No wonder nothing knew enters my mind, I'm so busy at the beck and call of these thoughts that I don't even see, there is no room for anything knew. I'm never present enough to see it anyway!"
After reading this statement something very powerful struck a cord in me. As I read the sentence again and for no apparent reason, I started looking at the "I'm" in this sentence as the "I'm" in my life. I started to see this "I'm" as a separate but true and authentic reality in myself, which up until this point had been kept unnoticed behind "these thoughts."
Simultaneously, I also recognized "these thoughts" as the main source, the only source actually responsible for and constantly perpetuating what I believed was my existence for all these years. In doing this, I started to expose these thoughts for the falsehood that they were. Without putting it into words, I had somehow to my astonishment, recognized the heavy and constant burden of these thoughts. As if beginning to find myself out, as if finding a thief hiding in my home, I recognized the cycle of this unrelenting thinker and the life it played out for me. Furthermore, it was from this completely separate perspective that this "I'm" within me was now deeply present and watching it all. "Of course! As it if confirmed deeply within, I started to realize that who I really was, this true "I'm," was absent solely because this incessant thinking mind was and had always been in the way, constantly and perpetually withholding an authentic conscious reality.
Within a few moments, a sharp and clearly defined separation had started to take place within me. A vast widening commenced resulting in the clear division between the "I'm," the true self, which had always been there but gone undetected and the "thinking me" which was now exposed and which was the perceiving factor behind the foundation of my existence. Like a black dot on white paper, the wider this separation became, the more obvious and individualized this "thinking me" had become. There was a witnessing to the separation in these two ways of living. I began to re-identify that which was the false representation of my life from a now more predominate awareness within and the true experience and division of the two had become clear.
As I put the book down, there was even deeper insight as I noticed everything around me start to slow down. Then abruptly, everything came to a complete halt. Suddenly, I was jarred into complete and crisp attention as if my consciousness had been jolted out of it's preoccupied and bounded existence of the mind. Without interpretation, I became aware of where I was for the first time. The VCR of my life, which had never stopped playing was now abruptly put on "pause" and all thinking had stopped. It was as if you where racing in a race car and then suddenly shifting to neutral, yet the car is still going and the motor is still on. It's just no longer racing. Immediately following this, in the front part of my head, I heard what could best be described as a very loud and crisp "pop" ( if you ever played on a pin ball machine, it was very much like the sound you heard when you win an extra ball or credit but enormously amplified) Having been so localized in it's origin, I knew this resonating sound had clearly come from inside of me. Following this, although physically I did not move, I felt my entire body falling backwards combined simultaneously with the sensation of everything around me rushing forward.
This strange and as I began to think again, abnormal experience left me very concerned. As if interrupted, a thought told me "something is seriously wrong here. What just happened? Did something seriously go wrong physically in my head or am I just going mad?" Then more thoughts came, "NO! Something has seriously gone wrong. Maybe you just witnessed some type of arterial implosion or worse yet, maybe you just experienced an aneurysm!" I grew more uncertain and more afraid as another thought confirmed with absolute authority, "Yes, That's it, you have just experienced the beginning of an aneurysm and most likely, internal bleeding has begun."
At that very moment, the darkest and most excruciating terror gripped my entire body. I had never experience nor thought could ever exist such gut-wrenching fear. Disoriented and not having a clear sense of myself I tried to find solid ground. Extending my arms and pushing my body away from the desk, I attempted to position my feet. In what seemed like hours but where only seconds, I became catatonic in this fear as I started to cry. It was at this point that I absolutely knew I was going to die. As I uncontrollably trembled all over, I became more frantic and desperate because I had just realized I wouldn't even have time to call my daughter Amanda to say good-bye. I was certain that death was coming that fast. It was an ongoing, searing pain of anguish which had become unbearable...I wanted out.
Fully accepting the predicament of my coming end, I dropped my head back on the chair and let my entire body go. I then said with an indescribable humility "God, if you really exist, and I'm to die right now, I'm asking you to take me, take all of me, I totally leave myself in your hands." It was no sooner than when I finished uttering those words that the most profound presence of love and peace poured over me, saturating my entire body. Totally embraced in this presence I witnessed the most unimaginable phenomenon take place. Literally, In my head, as I sat in that chair, a draining took place very much like a stopped up drain becoming unclogged again. It was as if everything I knew as my reality, all knowledge, all importance and certainty of myself and my existence had collapsed. Following this, there was clear and total emptiness. In this total emptiness there was more peace. Then behind this, without the formation of any words, the filling of the most incredible insight ensued, deeply sensing that everything was understood. It was unusual realization that I was knowing something, recalling something deeply familiar without ever physically or mentally experiencing it. I didn't remember or recall any particular memory of an identity or experience in a past life. But more profoundly and fundamentally was the obviousness now of the one subtle and pure reality that has always been. In this naked realization I simply knew I had been here before.
As I looked around the office, it felt very much as if just waking up from a long dormant but restful sleep. Completely alert in this wakefulness, surprisingly, I realized that I had awakened from a sleep which spanned almost 32 years. Then as I looked at the desk, the phone and everything around me, I noticed that all these things became surreal. Every object around me became objectless. They still had there shapes but the lines bordering these shapes had somehow become unimportant and un predominate. There was no solidity factor to them. As if the attention had shifted from these objects and there boundaries and instead became materially irrelevant. The "separateness" of these objects dissipated and instead shared in one collective field of energy. When I say "field of energy" I mean literally and precisely that. As if gazing upon a channel with no feed, I saw the interplay and constant interconnection of all things. And the amazing thing was that I was sharing in that same field. I was this field of energy. It was the direct experience of knowing the intimate nature of everything in which my now awakened reality was immersed and fused. I was all THIS and IT was all there was. There is no identity in it,,,it simply IS. All there was left was this and no-one there to know it.
The drying tears of despair which had earlier come down my cheeks were now accompanied by a smile that came upon my face as the most profound realization became evident, "this is god..all of this is god." I didn't believe this or have faith that it was so, no such thing was required or needed. It was simply known. Nor could I entertain a preconditioned idea or image of what I thought this god would eventually be like. That idea had died along with "who" I had thought I was. This god had no face, no identity, no boundaries and no religion. For the deepest knowing I could ever experience turned out to be the eternal knowing of the god (conscious reality) within me. Surfacing what had always been there, giving total and complete reality and no longer was I a buried fraction of it.
I knew that night in the office, in that moment, it was the ending of me, the individual me I had always thought myself to be. As strange as it may seem the "man" in me had finished. That solid and prideful identity and all that it perceived to be as it's existence and therefor reality, was no more. All that remained was that which was always there, a pure consciousness in it's totality belonging to no-one.
Post shift, events evolved in a way for me which allowed what happened, on the surface anyway, to become clear as far as what we perceive in our manifested experience. It actuality, it made no difference to what was now "seeing" because it was all that was left, and it was fine just like that. But from an understanding of what was known (knowledge ) about what had happened, it was clear. In the hours, days and months after this shift-collapse many things occurred that could best be described as miracles. I knew that what ever had always been in the way had now collapsed and the flood gates of all possibilities had opened.
Blessings"
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