Maybe it’s too much to ask: To know ourselves as Awareness (as Love), and then to live as such in the universe, as it appears to be. Is that an impossible mission?
Some days it seems that way. I look around social media at those who say they know what Love is, and I wonder. Because one face is proclaiming Love, and mere scrolling inches away another face is spewing nastiness. I’m not calling out any particular person here, and I’m not exempting myself, either.
It might be worth looking at the mechanics of this, before we try to divide into THEM and US. Because the two faces of the one person are going to be hard to classify together.
Let’s begin with a mostly stable, mostly functional adult, who steps into an exploration of our true nature. Of the essence of reality, the source of being. There are two main things going on.
First. This is like joining a motorway (highway). There’s a direction. It’s quite straightforward. There are exits that can be taken – continuing the journey is not compulsory – but there are no breaks in the carriageway, no forced stops. This journey is the felt sense of identity. Beginning fully immersed in the belief in a separate self, and moving ever further towards the embodied knowing of ourselves as Awareness. There might not be a destination, but there is a trajectory, and it’s reliable.
Okay, switch metaphors. Because this journey is also like walking along a see-saw (teeter-totter) from one end to the other. There’s a tipping point. At this point, the base sense of identity shifts. From feeling separate, with glimpses of Awareness, to a felt sense of being Awareness, with hangovers of separation. The tipping point can be a bit confusing. Before it, bailing or retreating are options. Beyond it, we’re on a downhill run.
So, that’s the first thing. A shift in the sense of identity. Explicitly or implicitly. Not without it’s hurdles and hiccups, but a direction and a trajectory.
And if this is all there were, it would be easy. Ramana Marharshi’s silence would have continued. Sydney Banks would indeed have got his message to the whole world in six weeks.
But there’s another factor. While, for most, this more-or-less follows the sense of identity, there are outliers. And in a world that loves to find absolutes, this can be confusing.
The second factor is comprised of our thoughts, feelings and actions. There are people whose felt sense of being is completely separate. Yet they act in the world in a very loving way. They may even point others away from separation, without realising this is what they are doing. Now, chances are their feelings will be mired in suffering, but somehow that stays below the surface most of the time.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are those with a clear, articulate and explicit understanding and embodied knowing of themselves as Awareness. But their actions belie that sense of identity. Why? Two main reasons. Either their starting point was very low. So they are on the trajectory, but it’s going to take a while, maybe a lifetime (or more), for their presentation to catch up with their knowing. Or, they have metaphorically huge pockets of conditioning, black holes that drag everything into them. It all seems clear, then one of these black holes is triggered, and they are sucked in. Their knowing of Awareness is no defence.
These two factors together help explain why there is no value in making absolute judgements in the relative universe. But, relatively speaking, someone whose actions seem out of line with their understanding, will be suffering. And a person can talk beautifully about Love, without feeling it themselves.
But you and me, what about us? Can we turn away from judging others, and focus briefly on our own coherence? Can we look first to our sense of identity, and see the ground of being as our essence? And then, in the exploration of that infinite, eternal transparency, notice our conditioned habits? Especially the stuff that ripples out from us? Our own smug mocking of someone we think has got it wrong? Our own dismissal of those who don’t agree with us? Our own defensive nastiness?
Every rejection puts us at war with ourselves. For the THEY we reject, they are US. No wonder it feels like an impossible mission.
There is a way. There is a way to live knowingly as Awareness, coherent in thought and word and deed. But it asks us to take a mirror to ourselves. And to heal that which blocks our own clear expression of an embodied Love.
This is our mission. I’m willing. Are you with me?
With Love,
Sara