Having a knack for Oneness

  I am sitting in the living room of our house. The winter sun is setting, and the rays are streaming in. Behind the money plants there is an object reflecting the light and it looks like a laser beam is headed straight for me. Occasionally a car is passing in a distance, but then, we are too much up the hill to really notice them. Outside, the bird feeder is nearly finished. A last feathered friend has seemingly fallen asleep on it. Maybe he filled up his belly too much, so he needs to rest for a little while. Thoughts? What thoughts could I possibly have other than seeing the beauty of the here and now. Drive? Well, I soon have to pick up my wife from the gym, have to help my son with his computer and attend a spiritual discussion group meeting, but these are just responsibilities that life has in store for me. Anxiety? Nothing could be further from the mind.

 

The “I Am” moment happens often to us. It’s fairly uneventful for our self identification, that’s why it’s hardly noticed, but it’s perceived as pleasant. The “I Am” moment is before body, mind, and even the world. It’s described as “being, consciousness, bliss” in the Indian tradition, but you have to have a knack for the whole to view it that way, because the restless mind and the biased self perception will brush right over it because there is nothing really that “we” get out of it. One may call the here and now that occasion when “we” don’t want, don’t know, don’t have. The New Testament’s “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God” (Matthew 5:3) describes the here and now perfectly. The power of now is that without our agenda, our perspective, our experience, infinite possibilities open up, and bliss is our birthright.

Alert and still

 You probably know the feeling when you are so alert that your body hair stands up. Mental stillness is a similar feeling. It’s an anticipation without movement; a readiness to receive any cosmic download that may be relevant when the time comes.

 

Why do we all talk so much in the spiritual community? How to communicate that inner readiness other than in silence? I once came up with the acronym S (erenity) E (nergy) L (ove) F (low) to communicate the state when self is not—S E L F prevails in silence.

 

While caring deeply, we are sitting on the fence

 Choice-less awareness or unconditional love means we don’t have a stake in something either way. Of course we are compassionate; naturally we do care, but it is understood moment by moment that God knows best. You probably heard about the story where a farmer first loses his horse, then hears that his son finds it, then sees that his son breaks a leg riding it, and eventually sees how all young men in his village are conscripted to the army as war breaks out but his son stays behind because of his injury. In all cases the farmer just says with equanimous mind, “Is this so?” The problem is that we cannot train ourselves to reach that state, we cannot develop faith that God protects us and our loved ones the way the farmer was protected, we have to “fall into” this state. Or put differently, our self understanding, and self involvement has to fall off like a foreign subject.

 

I would put this insight in terms of energy. There is an energy that is compassion, knowledge, unconditional love, serenity and flow where the self identification does not stand to get involved. This energy is always out there patiently waiting for us to connect. Jump on board!

 

Swimming in the sea of human consciousness

 There is a sea of consciousness humanity swims in. Evolution may be so inclined that over the centuries and millennia we at least swim in the right direction, but it isn’t easy going. The quest for serenity, love and compassion is quite slow. Greed and fulfillment is part of the tapestry of tendencies that get activated as we go along, lust and purity is too, as are hate and care, pride and humility, laziness and industry, jealousy and compassion. We are part of all that. We first have to acknowledge that we are swimming in the juices humanity has created over the centuries and millennia before we can transcend them. Yet, one fine day some of us become aware of a much easier mode of transformation. There is a wind blowing that some describe as “being, consciousness, bliss”, and God has given us this vessel that we once identified with a “me, myself and I” to set sails with.

 

We may call someone enlightened who still remembers what it takes to swim in the sea of human consciousness but who safely sails the divine winds and may call a master someone who mostly stays dry but knows how to climb back into the vessel when unexpectedly falling back into it. For the many of us in the spiritual community it is a seemingly random back and forth between swimming in the sea of duality and the occasional catching a ride in this vessel “body, mind, world”. Here is what most people don’t seem to understand, our life is our spiritual path. All the people we meet and live with, all the events we live through, they are designed to set us up for the ride across the sea of human consciousness, and every plunge back into the cold waters of humanity helps us to face yet another self-induced interference we haven’t quite gotten our arms around.

 

Jump into the sea of consciousness and enjoy the smooth sailing when the time comes.

Consciousness is One

 A friend described this spiritual breakthrough to me. After a long time of searching for God, the truth, enlightenment, law of attraction, etc., he became quite depressed. At a time of hitting rock bottom he heard the spiritual teaching of a woman who put everything he already knew in a completely new way. He was so overcome by this experience that he fainted. When he woke up he saw himself just like near-death experiences tend to go—his perception was hovering over his own head. This experience lasted for 21 days after which is old perception returned. He was a transformed being after this breakthrough.

 

We can either perceive, think, feel and act in this world as an individual, or we can be part of this world with the perception of “I am,” a mere transmitter of universal energy flowing through us. The out of body experience my friend had, and many people who are on the edge of life and death experience, is consciousness that has temporarily disconnected from the bodily manifestation. How can we merge with that universal energy? Well, we can start be observing that when we are this or that, we are not. The “I am” energy flows when the vessel of “me, myself and I” is empty. The “not this, not that” approach may set us up from the breakthrough.

 

The other day I said to a friend who is spiritually quite advanced, “we are one.” “No, we are not,” he responded. I didn’t know what to say in response, so I left it at that. It’s so obvious that our body are illusionary separation devices. When we talk with someone, you can literally feel how the conversing systems become one. That is, for friends who have that level of intimacy to allow the merger. Human consciousness is one, and our neural networks have to capacity to experience that. It is the illusion of being a separate self that is keeping us apart.

 

Empaths know for a fact that consciousness is one. They experience the other person. Most spiritual talents are an outgrowth of the fact that humanity and the higher planes of consciousness are one. Mediums can still perceive the energy of departed souls. Family energy can be observed over generation. All this is not speculation, it’s a fact, but we have to leave our personal conditioning behind to be open to this consciousness highway. How to leave it behind you ask? Well, dialing into our joint heritage is a steppingstone to opening up to the higher planes of consciousness.

Surrendering versus realization

 Self-surrender is the same as Self-knowledge.

The ego submits only when it recognizes the Higher Power.

Ramana Maharshi

 

Letting come what comes, letting go what goes, is surrendering.

 

Seeing what comes and what goes, and knowing it’s the only way is realization.

 

Surrendering implies there is still a self involved that has to let go.

 

Realization implies that the self has been wowed into oblivion.

 

Maybe surrendering and realization always go hand in hand

Will-power: friend or foe?

 Few of us get this, we cannot use will-power to break free from self-identification. Why not, you might ask, isn’t there a higher Self and this lower self has to be vigilant on Its behalf? Yes and no! The problem is that self that feels something is missing and longs to be reunited with the higher Self—and that is supposedly out there waiting for us—is the interference. How can it act on behalf of something that it isn’t?

 

I saw a tragic event the other day as I was sitting outside. An ant got caught in a web that I couldn’t even see. As it was struggling to get out of it, it entangled itself ever more. A spider that was barely a third of the ant’s size waited patiently for the ant to finish the entangling act. Working towards breaking free with the help of will-power—be it forcing oneself to love the neighbor as oneself, or meditating even though we don’t want to, is like that.

 

Still, will-power has its place. These inter-generational conditioning we have to deal with runs deep. It’s easy to get exhausted being mindful of all these self-induced interferences we put up. Will-power is necessary when it comes to get up the next morning and try again. We all have been there, and we all rely on our support group to keep going for the simple reason that there is no alternative. Will—an instrument of self—fades as we “fall” into the now.