Witnessing opens us to the Infinite

Consciousness is capable of infinite expansion. That is why you can become so creative with so many ideas, because you expand so that you can see from many different angles. That is why we listen to people in conversations; so we can begin to appreciate the many ways of seeing in the consciousness. So consciousness has an infinite nature and we need to give attention to that consciousness inside and move away from all the contraction, the limitation – that is what the Māyā is, it is a contraction of consciousness that makes us see the unreal for the real.

So when we think of Self, we do not think of an immortal Self, we think human. The wise ones say that we are immortal but we are dreaming mortality, they say “Be conscious, wake up and see that you are dreaming.” I showed you the dream-like nature of life – everything around you is changing before your very eyes,  and I said, “That which is changing cannot be real, cannot be eternal.” The goal then is to keep on witnessing.

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The Timeless Space

There is a timeless aspect to the consciousness where the pure observer is. Thought, emotions and the physical body exist in time, but the place from where we observe is beyond time. Sri Vasudeva

Witnessing Can Take us to the Rapturous “I”

In the Māyā, we have this identity of Self but it is an ego identity, not true Self. And this ego has to be transcended as it were, because we need to come back to the experience of true Self. The ego will still exist though in the experience of true Self because once you have a form, the identity of the form is there and that is the ego. We have an energetic form on the inside and we have a physical form, so we have an energetic ego and we have a physical ego.

We have a causal ego with all the karmas that are sleeping in the causal body; we have a subtle ego in the dream state – the dream is the mind state – and; we have the gross ego or that of the waker, the physical body. So we have the three states of consciousness; the waking, the dreaming, the deep sleeping. And we have spoken about that fourth state, the turiya. In all of these experiences, we have an ego at play, and this ego has to undergo a transformation in the evolutionary process obviously.

It requires witnessing, the posture of the sākśī, and it has to move from the waker, through the dreamer in the mind, beyond the deep sleep, into that fourth state of witnessing. Can you be excited about that? Can you be excited that in focusing on beingness, you can really see the journey? But if you are caught, if you become the doer, you cannot. So you need to be in the beingness observance. And there it is the “I am”; not the “I am the doer,” but just the “I am,” just coming more into “I am.” So when you think of “satchidānanda,” “sat chit” is just that pure consciousness state where just the “I” exists in its pure being, and the “ānanda” is like the “ābhoga”; it is the joy, the rapture. So when we say, “satchidānandoham,” that is what we are saying; we are that sākśī that is in bliss. Satchidānandoham. Satchidānandoham. That is the same turīyā bhoga, the rapturous experience of the “I” in freedom.

For more details on the practise listen to Sri Vasudeva on Day 33 Forty days 2017. The full talk and meditation is available for a few days here.  To download a personal copy go to  www. blue-star.org

Discoveries

We’ve been talking about observing the stories the mind creates and I promised to share a little more of my practice.

I became so interested in the observation process and wondered if I could watch the stories as they were being created in the mind. This was fascinating because what I discovered so far, is that the mind begins to create a story when I start to lose focus on what is happening in the present moment!

This was a great surprise to me, because I thought I was being present moment focused. As I pondered the experience I realized that there are gradations in the experience of present moment awareness. Sometimes I was more present than others and when I was more present the experience was more expansive, more blissful, more harmonious. I could increase how present I was by more consciously engaging in an experience.

Do you ever find, you tell yourself a story about how if you were in what you consider an ideal spiritual community, you would be able to experience more of your spiritual Self? That Self may have more love or peace or harmony. You probably have variations to this story.

Well another discovery I made as I practiced observing and being more conscious, was that the circumstances I was in, were ideal for growing or manifesting those same qualities I was wishing for! The more present I was, the more I realized how perfectly designed my situation was to help me to make a leap, not just a little step. As the mind became clearer I could see the opportunities better, the mundane seemed to disappear and everything around me became a rich spiritual field. This could be what is meant by “everything is in Divine order”. Isn’t this interesting?

Whenever we join in practice the collective field we create together is wonderfully supportive. Thank you so much for sharing this journey with me. Lets see what we will discover this week!