(Source: Stillness in the Roar of Experience)
16. We are constantly moving, jumping, running, and dodging. Of course, it is our fate that we have to do these things to live, love, and somehow survive another day. But what if it is an illusion? Not that we don’t have to do these things to live, but they are not all there is. While immersed in the world and the events that unfold in it, we have neglected the consciousness that allows us to be aware of these things in the first place.
Consciousness is constant. It suffers no interruption, even as you move between dreams or between dreaming and wakefulness. (We do not lose our awareness even in dreams.)
A 40-year-old woman is not more or less aware than when she was four.
Consciousness is unchanging. It does not grow or diminish. Even for someone who has suffered a catastrophic injury and whose memory and sense of self have changed, base awareness—the ability to see, hear, and feel—remains unchanged. What they know may have changed, but awareness itself is intact.
Something that begins with life must fluctuate with life, such as our senses and bodily functions. Consciousness is unchanging throughout life. One may wonder if it even has a point of origin.
17. If God existed, would it change anything? Would it make life any different from what it is now? Most likely not. Things are perfect in their own way, even when they are difficult and hopeless. Even God, if it did exist, would be powerless against this perfection.
That which we cannot alter by an iota is necessarily perfect. Maybe not perfect compared to all that we can imagine. But it is perfect in its natural configuration.
Even wars are natural and perfectly suited to our avarice and selfish and jealous nature.
The way we are, the way we cannot change what goes on around us, we must be as gods!
How can it have gone so wrong for us? How can there be so much heartache when we should have been happy and carefree?
18. One night, in a pitch black punctuated by the occasional headlights reflected off the blinds, I reached into the center of my being for the quivering core. I could feel my inside quiver. I looked at my hands and fingers, but they were not shaking.
Only my heart was fluttering, the flighty rabbit.
No food should come between my rabbit and me, I decided. Nor comfort. Nor security of home or dogma.
Is this what happens when consciousness finds itself in existence?
Our understanding of reality is too fixed, too static. We wrap our arms too tightly around our chests. It’s not enough that we have built shelters around ourselves so that we are almost entirely boxed in; we also lock down our minds by seeing reality as made up only of desires and frustrations.
We think we are either the center of the world or we are nothing. While we may be truly nothing, we are also everything, as we, being nothing, also channel the world, nay, the universe.
Instead, we are left with fear and anxiety and a universe that can be explained away by graphs and numbers (or likes and dislikes). Do we already have a universe that numbers can wholly replace? How alive or livable is a reality like that?
What if what we are and what the universe is are much more mysterious? Can we make room in our minds for that?
19. The ample heartache, the suffering, the disappointment, and for what? Whatever we may find, they are inconsequential in the long run. They can hurt or harm us for a time. They stay with us only because we let them.
Suffering is a given. The world can be hard, but it is also a gift because of its transitory nature. Although we cannot dwell forever in this world, it also does not detain us long.
20. When you listen, who or what is listening?
When you listen with your eyes closed, and if you pay attention, you may feel that the listening occurs in places less than well-defined.
We are imbued with awareness. However, this does not mean that we are fit to understand.
You know you are not alone in this life; sometimes, you even feel a deep connection to the people and things around you.
In fact, at some point, you may suspect that you are not confined to your body.
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that you are at a point just before your birth. (Hold that feeling for a moment or two.) Then you are born. Now, open your eyes. Isn’t the world bright? Maybe too bright? You briefly squint your eyes. The world is full of colors. Some things even take your breath away; the world is full of such powerful pulls. But there are also things that repel you.
We move through our lives, elated and disgusted by turns, all the time thinking infantilely that the world is a plaything and should yield to us what we desire.
But the world is not a plaything.
It is a mysterious place hot enough to cook our minds.
We are not here to play. We are here to deepen the colors and to be fuel. All the time here, we think we are consuming, but we are being consumed. As we tear the world apart, we tear ourselves apart.
Now, close your eyes again. Where are you now? You are on the verge of death. You just closed your eyes for the last time while dying. All the lights that have distracted you throughout your life are gone. You will soon be back to where you were before you were born.
Is it a long dream between life and death? Or is it momentary forgetfulness? We thought we were this and that when life and death are but bookends.
(To be continued...)
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