I had an experience recently that changed everything.
It is so challenging to write about experiences that alter perceptions of reality. Words are so incredibly limited. I want to fall back on Carl Jung's coined word
numinous that indicates an experience that can not be put into words, but I believe I can not choose to do that. Some things must be spoken or written about. 'Why?' my mind interjects, 'What is so bloody important about your one tiny experience?'
My writing here began with an "I". That doesn't feel quite right on some level. What wants to be written is, 'This being called Edward, in one moment of time-space reality found itself in direct contact with something that altered its perception of reality and continues to do so'.
Writing like that stems from a desire to separate myself from the 'I', the personality that moves about in this world. I can't do that anymore. I Know there is no separation. I have fallen in love with this embodied experience, this life, in a way I have never done before. I, I am here now and loving it.
It would be more accurate to start this writing with, 'I had a series of experiences over the past 50 years that changed everything.' Yes, that is true. I want to explore the most recent experience that changed everything.
My tendency is to attempt to describe my experiences by relaying details. I have been guided to understand this strategy actually keeps me from dropping deeply into the interdependent sensory, emotional, mental and spiritual dimensions of what I have experienced. I have been given a series of dyad self-inquiry questions that I will use here to embody more fully, on every level, the experience of meeting Conscious Everything.
The Experience:
Making eye contact with my beloved partner as we sat outside on the deck playing Scrabble, while she talked about something that I can no longer recall, there was a brief flicker of something intense, vast, important, totally grabbing my attention. As I moved my eye contact from her left eye to her right eye something had happened. A glimpse so significant that I stopped listening, stopped breathing, my eyes growing wider as I searched for what I had seen.
Rational, linear thought came to the aid of my momentarily overwhelmed perception and I began to run a search pattern from eye to eye, changing point of focus, depth perception, even pulling my head back slightly to adjust for my eyes' aging and changing capabilities. Then I saw it!
Placing my focus between her eyes and drawing back about one and a half inches I could see both eyes, equally in focus, looking at me. Once again my eyes went wider, my breath caught in my throat, tears began to fill my eyes, and I could feel my mind becoming overwhelmed by the awe of all that I was perceiving.
I could feel energy building in my body as my partner asked me what was happening. I managed to say, "I have to scream," and I ran upstairs to the bedroom where I buried my face in the pillows and screamed until I burst into tears. When I looked up, through tear-filled eyes, to find her sitting looking at me I said, "I have never been here before... I have never been here before." I was scared, outside of my known experience and I did not know what was going to happen next.
With some fear I looked into that focus point again and saw again what I somehow Knew to be Conscious Everything looking back at me, and I began to cry again. I felt such awe, amazement, and wonder. What I KNEW was that Everything That Is was looking out through my beloved partner's eyes AT ME, and that Everything WAS CONSCIOUS!
As I looked at my beloved, golden-white light poured out of her eyes and out of her heart centre. I could feel another scream rising from deep in my being. The awe, the awe threatened to overwhelm my mind and take it offline. Clearly my face and my emotional state communicated a great deal of my experience of being blown wide open, and my beloved smiled at me and said, "Tell me what another is?" "Another is Conscious Everything," I tearfully said.
Then I heard her say, "What do you see when you look into Whinni's (our dog's) eyes?" Looking into her canine eyes I was hit by the same blast of Conscious Everything. The only difference being the light streaming from Whinni's eyes were many shades of browns and earth tones. Tears flowed from my eyes in joy and amazement.
I felt exhausted, exhilarated, empty, full, separate and in union. I got to my feet and looked in the mirror and with surprise found Conscious Everything looking back through my eyes. Not as easy to see or maintain, but there nonetheless. The reality of Conscious Everything looking out through these three sets of eyes, at ME, forced me to realize that I AM CONSCIOUS EVERYTHING. As is everyone, everything.
I have had numerous experiences of being completely aware of not being separate from anything (e.g. the tree and I are One), but never had Everything in a singular consciousness looked back at me from the eye's of what I had been perceiving as an individual separate being, my partner, or anyone else. EVERYTHING! Every tiny energy unit in the entire Cosmos was in that moment being perceived, experienced as unified, ONE, and Conscious!
Conscious Everything feels, to me, as an energy of awe itself, looking out in its own wonder, but not surprise or curiosity, and smiling warmly, a gentle, loving presence. There is no fear in Conscious Everything.
My mind gravitates toward metaphor: Imagine holding your arm straight out in front of you, parallel to the ground, with your palm facing away from you, as if you are saying, 'Stop!' The palm of my hand is 'me', my personality that moves through the world in this heavier, denser state of being human; much of the time not completely aware of being in touch with All That Is. My arm and top of hand are Conscious Everything, complete stillness while also in movement, One with Everything and completely Aware.
Only in being present can 'I' become aware of Conscious Everything. And, only by making presence my moment to moment practice can I stay in contact with Conscious Everything, and BE the presence looking out through my eyes.
As I write these words I feel like Jodie Foster's character in the movie
Contact when she says, "They should have sent a poet." I want to write, paint, dance, sing, cook, laugh, cry, all at the same time to try to communicate this experience.
Conscious Everything is Vast, beyond that word's ability to convey vastness, while at the same instant, Immediate Conscious Presence. And, this is the kicker, Conscious Everything is here right now as I write, as you read, looking out through our eyes, present in every moment, seeing, feeling, knowing, being, whether we have eye sight as we understand it or not. It is not separate from the writer or the reader, IT IS us, we are IT.
Q: What did I become aware of that I wasn't aware of before?
- There is a Conscious Everything, present in every moment, accessible to the I AM experiencer
- Another is Conscious Everything
- I am Conscious Everything
- Everything, everywhere, in every time and every space, is conscious, aware of everything else in the same moment... Everything Aware of Itself
Q: How does this awareness impact my experience of others, my life, and myself?
- I can't look at anyone without knowing they are Conscious Everything
- I can't, for very long, believe in my own smallness, limited capacity, stories of fear that would try to convince me I am unconscious nothing
- I have to BE. Only 'doing' that arises out of Being is worth doing
- I feel a strong determination to Remember fully Who I Am through Being in the moment
- I accept that others may not know they are Conscious Everything, and have their own way and their own timing for waking up to this awareness
- When I see Conscious Everything looking out from another's eyes while they are in the midst of their fears or limited mind beliefs my capacity to Love expands and tears flow freely, and there is nothing to 'do'
- I choose to treat this being called Edward with greater respect, greater reverence, since he is my personal vehicle for Conscious Everything in this human experience
Q: What is the significance of this for you?
- When I am in touch with my personality self I notice I feel smaller
- When I am in direct contact with Conscious Everything, which happens most easily through the eye contact with another, I feel fearless, joyful, and one with All That Is
- I strongly sense everything has fundamentally changed
Q: What am I curious about as I sit with this?
- Can this be taught or transmitted?
- What will unfold from this knowing?
- Can these two questions exist when only Being is necessary?
