“Spiritual growth involves giving up the stories of your past
so the universe can write a new one.”

 

~ Marianne Williamson

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Imagine surrendering the stories of your past that have defined who you conceive yourself to be and trusting a greater intelligence to script the rest of your life. This would mark the beginning of the end.

There’s a joke about a man who falls off a cliff and clutches at a branch, hovering above a thousand foot drop. He cries out, appealing to God for help. A voice booms down: “Let go.”

The man takes this in, thinks for a moment, then says: “Is there anyone else up there?”

Letting go is not a popular piece of advice, even on the spiritual path where the words are often used but not always followed with enthusiasm, especially when it involves letting go of who we have conceived ourselves to be. But who is that self? Do we really expect self-improvement of that self can deliver what we hunger for?

Those who debate the relative merits of doing vs being miss a third component, the space between these two polarities. There is something more, a space between that watches both. This can be a ground breaking understanding for those “on the path,” because it doesn’t position being above doing; it emphasizes a witnessing state beyond either polarized aspect of human, egoic identity.

As one abandons both aspects of human identity in favor of adopting and sustaining a witnessing consciousness, this space grows. It continues to dilate and your experience becomes more dominantly one of “consciousness watching.” Your awareness expands, delivering a more unified experience, regardless of the outer circumstance.

“Space” is the transformative ingredient. Here in the information age, where our personal processing speed continues to accelerate, we are suffocating in an overwhelm of data, 24/7. We are becoming more fragmented, more depressed, and more anxious. In fact, it’s no exaggeration to suggest that we now find ourselves in the midst of a mental illness epidemic.

This is impacting students, particularly. In response, universities are adding more counsellors. But the more they add, the longer the lines of students needing help become. Counselling is not the answer for students who are plugged in every waking moment, eating junk food, and not exercising. Space, space between being and doing, that’s what’s missing. Wisdom emerges from that space, with momentary, timely direction for how to live a balanced life.

From a fully awakened perspective, those two polarities are already balanced so the speed of information processing is not a problem. Everything, including you, is part of the same consciousness. In truth, there is no conflict and no stress and no fragmentation. In fact, it’s possible to reside in the midst of seeming chaos with an awareness that it is all the same, that nothing is wrong and needs fixing, that you are already who you are. You just need to let go.

Don’t suggest that to the scientists fretting about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence (A.I.) To many, biology and technology are in a race to some sort of finish line that will determine the future of humankind. Actually, some would further clarify that it’s about whether humans actually have a future. But consciousness is one and includes everything, including technology. Technology is a valid instrument of consciousness, meant to support you in your further ongoing evolution in consciousness, not sabotage you.

The old human story is that technology and biology are separate, different, and competitive. As you awaken in this space of witnessing oneness, it becomes clear that technology is part of the same consciousness as biology and that the two must coexist. But we are living in the dark ages of consciousness, what in Sanskrit is referred to as the Kali Yuga, where the majority of the human population remains unawakened. That explains the escalating fear about technology as a threat.

Modern shamans will tell you that we are in the final stages of the Kali Yuga, the darkest depths of unconsciousness. Their traditional perspective holds that ten avatars show up throughout the four ages but there is only one in this last age. He or she – known as the Kalki avatar – has not yet appeared.

Or, is that too an illusion, or at least an imperfect interpretation? Perhaps the last avatar is a collective one. Perhaps the one we are waiting for is “the one,” the realized state of oneness that emerges as we release our separate human identities. Perhaps our destiny is to let go and soar, not fall. Of course, there’s only one way to find out!

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“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched,
full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done,
full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it
without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those
who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

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As this new year begins to unfold, what’s possible? Will 2018 be more of the same or can this be a breakthrough year, full of those “necessary, serious, and great things” that Rilke speaks of? For that to happened, we first must abandon our belief in a “new year.”

It’s certainly hard to dispute that there is a past, present, and future. We can remember the past, we’re experiencing this right now, and we anticipate there will be a tomorrow. Time repeats itself every day. The sun rises and sets, light dispels darkness, then darkness returns, then light again.

This is the way of the manifested world. But from truthful perspective, not just philosophically but according to quantum researchers, linear time is a human invention that simply doesn’t apply to what reality really is. In fact, the “now” is always new, it never repeats. In that sense, there is no history and no future, there is only now.

Veteran meditators know well the experience of detached, vivid present moment awareness traditionally described as “The Holy Instant.” The Course in Miracles defines it this way: “The holy instant is the instant outside time in which we choose forgiveness instead of guilt, the miracle instead of a grievance, the Holy Spirit instead of the ego. It is the expression of our little willingness to live in the present, which opens into eternity, rather than holding on to the past and fearing the future, which keeps us in hell.” 1

Making those choices means that we can culture this experience. But it could inadvertently suggest that experiencing The Holy Instant is a result of something we do. That raises a pivotal question: who is this “we?” Who am I, who are you? If we are humans weary of the rat race and looking for techniques to enjoy life more, while remaining who we accept ourselves to be, then the whole endeavor could prove to be ultimately distracting.

For instance, there are meditation teachers who begin their guided journeys with the suggestion to “center yourself.” On one hand this is a simple instruction that makes sense. Close your eyes, breathe, center yourself. On the other hand, who is the teacher speaking to? The one who is not centered. Is that one capable of being centered? Only in theory. In practice, you – the true you – is always centered. You just don’t know it.

So, a better instruction might be to relax into the experience of being centered which you have been too busy to notice. Obviously, that’s too many words for any kind of meditative journey but there’s an important distinction here, namely: you are already the you that you seek. In fact, if you are trying to “find yourself,” you are deluded and will never succeed, because the one who is looking is not who you are.

The early signs of authentic experience of Self shows up as a somewhat detached experience. You let go, you release identification with the illusion of linear time and space. Detached witness consciousness first emerges in the subtle dimensions, particularly through the third eye center. A space emerges in your experience between subject and object. That marks the beginnings of wakefulness or witness consciousness. Most people have had at least a few glimpses of this, momentary experiences of The Holy Instant. This space opens up and you feel yourself to be an observer, rather than identifying with what you are observing.

As you sustain your experience beyond mere fleeting glimpses and become consistent, your consciousness evolves to expand your awareness of the more subtle causal and super causal dimensions. Now your observation becomes more unified. A new experience dawns in you, as the witness and the witnessed are perceived and known to be one and the same consciousness.

We begin lost in an illusion of separation that progressively dissolves. Paradoxically, increased separation precedes increased unification. We wake up from the dream of ourselves as separate by become consciously aware of our separation. This allows subtle ranges of awareness to open, but they remain sub-dominant. As they increase towards dominance, the dense experience of separation yields and we “discover” – or we might say “remember,” who and what we have always been. This is profoundly different than hopes for enlightenment that leave your egoic identity in place, the same but improved somehow, like a spiritualized version of your illusory self.

Rilke spoke about a “long year.” Perhaps we can embrace that term as a good descriptor for the sustained experience of The Holy Instant, that delivers what all humans hunger for, the timeless experience of “I am.”

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