Over the last 10 years I have experienced many “awakenings” or “openings,” glimpses beyond the veil. For the last couple of months I’ve been experiencing a “call”, if you will, to “deepen”, although I have not understood what this means – deepen into what? Then last Saturday I experienced what Meg Hitchcock calls a “reality peel” – where you see beyond this reality into Reality. (See her posts:
Brick Wall, William James & the Reality Peel,
Further Musings on Enlightenment). And yet, it’s hard to put into words. So I’ve been waiting for the words to arise. At the very least it will make for an interesting blog post. :)
Internally I have been feeling as if I am in suspended animation, despite all the outward chaos going on in my life. In this suspended “state” it has felt as if I have been “waiting” for something, although that’s not quite the right word either. It’s a feeling of dynamic, restful suspension, as if I am waiting, but not like a person waiting for a bus to arrive, just an inward sense of waiting in Stillness, with no expectation, no anticipation, no *needing* for anything to happen, just feeling this pull into something deeper internally, while the surface chaos around me continues.
This past weekend there was an understanding that this “call” is a call to “return”, if you will, although it’s not really a “return” in the sense of two separate entities, one returning to the other, but more like something falling back in on itself, coming back around to itself, like coming full circle, being seen by itself. I remembered a phrase I’ve heard several times: “Enlightenment is really just the Self calling the Self back to Self” (or Itself). I resonate deeply with this. “We” are being called back to That which we inherently are! The Self becoming aware of Itself. Awareness aware of Awareness. It feels like the movement of the Self, waking up to Itself – the wave “returning” to the Ocean, and realizing that it *is* the Ocean. It’s a movement that just happens. It cannot be summoned, or created. It’s like all that is being lived outwardly is being called back to Itself – the in-breath after the pause after the out-breath. And in this there is deep rest. In this suspended “state” all the issues that my mind wraps around don’t really matter anymore: Mother issues, basement issues, Duality/Non-Duality, Enlightenment. They all become transparent, fluidly rising and falling within this spacious awake awareness. I have felt this before and yet the conceptual scaffolding always comes back into play – as it did this time.
For the past couple of weeks when I *look* at things they don’t seem like what they are. A window doesn’t *seem* like a window – although it is. It’s just an opening in a wall that is called “window.” As I sat in the living room Saturday I looked over at the couch, and that’s when the “reality peel” happened. I didn’t seek it, wasn’t meditating on it, was just sitting there and everything looked a little “different.” I realized that the couch *appears* as a couch, but it’s not really – a couch. The couch didn’t actually morph into something else, but there was a *sense* that it exists within a larger context of Existence; that there is a greater energy existing there/here. There was the sense that the things that we *see* are really a reality within Reality – within this Greater Context – not separate from It, but as *appearances of* It - appearances in/of the field of Awareness that *contains* everything that It is. It’s as if this field of Awareness, this Mystery, sees Itself *through* the seeing of this, through the awareness of this…
Every *thing* (including us) is really fluidly suspended in this Greater Context. From this perspective “things” are no longer seen as just objects, or just things – but appearances of Reality. Everything is surreal. Nothing is what it seems. It’s as if a sensory shift has taken place. It is a recognition of the fluidity of Being. It’s right here, behind what we *believe* in our minds to be real. Thought, feeling, emotion, objects, people all exist in a fluid dynamic of Oneness. And, it’s as if this Self/Being/Oneness *wants* to reveal Itself, wants to be *seen*, wants to be known – intimately – through the scaffolding.
Sweet Serenity ~~~~~
"What has been calling you throughout time.....is the flame of Consciousness
that is the essence of your being. When you meet yourSelf...
you are fulfilled, you are home.... to be home is simply to be here....
....discover directly for yourself this jewel that is alive within you."
Gangaji
The Diamond in Your Pocket
Funky Art :) - Christine
