Awareness Awakes



Egoic Mind: I’m feeling out of sorts.  Left out.  Tired.  But yet, like a surge is coming on.

Gnani: That’s a lot going on inside the illusion of YOU isn’t it.

Egoic Mind: Yes.  I suppose.  It’s all in my head … about what’s in my body.  But that is where it is in the moment.

Gnani: And is there choice for you in this moment?

Egoic Mind: I guess I don’t know.  I chose to close my web browser.  I chose to consider if there was a way out by engaging in enquiry.  But it feels like desperate grasping rather than a choice per se.

Gnani: What if instead of choosing to DO something.  You CHOSE this moment … just like it is.  Take a good look at this moment.  Just now.  What do you see?

Egoic Mind: The house is unusually quiet.  Kids have lots of homework and seem to actually be DOING it.  My breath feels constrained like I have to push the muscles in my chest to take air IN.  There is spontaneous humming going on in my body.  I’ve been humming for hours I think … especially while I type.  I think it is masking something.  Trying to push through something scary.  Like whistling in a grave yard.  OK.  No more humming.

Gnani: No need to try and change anything.

Egoic Mind: So I shouldn’t try and stop humming?

Gnani: No need to NOT try and change anything.

Egoic Mind: So I can change and stop humming?

Gnani: No need to NOT NOT try and change anything.

Egoic Mind: OK.  All of this is happening in this moment.  No need to consider why or authorship.  I get it.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  No need to GET anything either.  Ok.  In this moment … there is pain on the right side of my neck.  There is some effervescing in my left leg.  My body is at an excellent, dare I say ideal temperature.  That’s unusual.  Mmmmm.  The temperature has been hot or cold for days now in this food body.  But right now … right now … it feels Goldilocks-just-right.  Still there is pain and the effervescing, and thoughts about inadequacies.  But temperature wise … it’s wonderful.

Gnani: Open up the lens and take a wider view.

Egoic Mind: Huh?  Outside?  I hear a car engine … typing on the keyboards from downstairs.  I feel stuff too here in the room.

Gnani: Don’t get distracted by the energy or sounds surrounding you.  Look DEEPER.

Egoic Mind: Eyes closed.  I can still type.  There is a current of energy in my body.  The tingling has spread to my left arm.  And there is a vertical movement from head to toe on my right side of the body.  Wow.  The temperature just shifted.  The left side of my body is very cold.  My elbow is freezing.  Oh my!  I can touch my left arm with my right hand and it IS glacial.  Really really cold.  Where did all that warmth go?  It hasn’t even been two minutes.

Gnani: Was it really there at all?

Egoic Mind: It felt so real.  I felt warm and at a perfect temperature all over.  It felt real.  But it’s not possible that the room changed temp.  So what happened?  Geez, my nose is freezing now too.  Wow.  This is too strange.  Everything has changed on a dime.

Gnani: Don’t get caught up in the minutia stay with this moment.  Look INSIDE but not within your body.

Egoic Mind: Huh?  Where am I going to look IN if it is not IN this body.  Ok, let me experience this.  Closing my eyes again.  Stretching my neck back.  Feeling this moment.  Feeling the computer keyboard and the fingertips touching it.  Words.  Air.  Sounds.  Everything IS perfect.  Right in this moment.  There is flow.  There are things that are happening just the way they should be.  This body feels a bit like a dense cloud that is still supported fully in the sky.  The edges of the cloud start to merge with the air and there is no boundary where one starts and the other begins. I can feel the pillow and the pillow feels my head.  Love.  There is a feeling of radiant love.  Not a grasping for in a way that we hope not to lose it.  But a loving of everything in this moment.  Goosebumps and all.  Wow.  Nothing has changed but everything is different.

Gnani: Don’t stop.  Go deeper still.

Egoic Mind: Yes.  More tingles.  More shivers.  Just so.  Just this.  I hear the traffic on the freeway miles away.  I feel the headlights and taillights.  It is all streams and streams of light vibrations.  Moving.  There is a pattern and a purpose.  The stars.  Moving across the night sky.  But wait?  Is it the stars that move or the earth that moves?

Gnani: Does it matter if the stars exist only in your mind?

Egoic Mind: What?  No.  Really?  Like the warmth that was there moments ago that turned into bone chilling cold?  All an illusion?  What about TIME?  If SPACE is an illusion, TIME must also be a concept yes?

Gnani: Don’t get caught in a worm hole.  Go deeper.  What do you see, what do you sense?

Egoic Mind: There are currents of movement in the stillness.  It doesn’t change the emptiness in any way … but there is movement.  Enormous waves  … no not waves, ripples … no … what is it?  Words are so hard to come right now.  Like a brush kissing the canvas.  There is movement within the stillness.  This is SOOOO much better than searching Google for name-that-illness.

Gnani: Use your eyes.  Hear from the ears.

Egoic Mind: Yeah, yeah.  Smell from the nose.  There is a subtle stillness here.  The house has the normal night time noises.  Gurgling of the fish tank, this cannot even be discerned during the day from the symphony of other domestic din.  The muffled sound of jet engines at high altitudes from red eye flights can be heard overhead.  And that tingling in my leg.  It’s still there.  The neck pain has changed, diminished really, where only a shadow is left behind as a marker of where it once was.  Even the night time snack of bitter Greek yogurt with fresh cranberry-mango chutney seems to contain all of the tart-sweet-textures of a hand spun family heirloom.  It’s all here, in one morsel.  Nothing is missing.  The tiny seeds of the cranberry seem to contain the entire universe.  One bite and I am soothed by the sun and the rains that nourished this food.  No, this medicine that I imbibe. Everything I need is within my grasp and yet there is no grasping or refusing any thing.  How do I know if this is but another literary illusion?

Gnani: Keep looking.  Don’t get lost in the words.  Look to the silence in between the syllables.

Egoic Mind: If I wait.  I can watch everything come to me.  Organically.  As it is intended.  Heaven can wait.  Awareness is awake in this moment.

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