The Light Of Consciousness Is Burning So Brightly, But We Cannot See It With Our Minds
How is it possible that the Universe is created? How is it possible that the Universe is known? What is the unifying principle between creation and knowing? Could it be that knowing (consciousness) IS creation? What is the Universe? It is the phenomena we perceive through our pattern-matching mind. These patterns we recognise through the mind are vibrations of energy picked up by our senses that is information our minds and then recognised against patterns in memory.
However, ancient wisdom points out that understanding (literally “standing under”) these recognitions of our minds is another level of reality that is the pure knowing of it, regardless of its informational content. In other words, we are not interested in what it is, but simply that it is. We can see the world through our pattern-recognising minds or see it more purely and fundamentally through the eye of pure knowing, often called Awareness. First, we must recognise that there is this level of pure knowing, irrespective of content, that is always and everywhere present and is what “illuminates” the relative pattern matching of our minds.
This understanding may initially be a rational appreciation but later become experiential. Once we recognise this illuminating pure knowing, we cannot but recognise its presence everywhere. But what is recognising this illuminating pure knowing? A pattern-recognising mind can only see the manifest Universe. Its capacities are not capable of recognising this pure knowing. It then becomes clear that the only thing that can recognise this pure knowing is itself. At this point, it becomes clear that what we think of in human terms as a personal self defined as a separate mind and body is, in reality, this pure knowing or consciousness, being aware of itself. Of course, this is a human language designed to describe a cosmic experience that is ultimately beyond words. To recognise this illuminating pure knowing we are, we do not need to get rid of the noise of our minds, but we need to be open to the possibility that it exists and relax the focus on anything in particular. We will find it is not wishful thinking to have the experience of pure knowing, irrespective of content, IS real.
Once we are knowingly this pure knowing, we recognise the pattern matching of our minds are simply perceiving vibrations of this pure knowing we are. Again this may be an intellectual possibility at first, until the experience of our oneness with these forms our minds are recognising becomes also apparent. The recognition of pure knowing leads instantly to this second recognition in practice. This understanding of our true pure, knowing self is to be at one with it, and this understanding is felt as universal love for all things. This oneness with the forms our pattern-matching minds recognise is perceived as beauty.
The critical point is to be open-minded to the recognition of the experience of the light of pure knowing and to recognise this is everywhere a universal principle that is the ultimate democratic knowing. This knowing doesn’t care what it knows. It just knows. Because we are focused on the content of what is known, we can quickly crowd out or forget entirely the light of pure knowing, and it does take much to glimpse it. Being open-minded to the possibility and, from this, letting go of the emphasis on the content of experience. The recognition, when it starts to happen, is not intellectual.
It is at the level of the pure knowing of consciousness itself. Once we can see life from the experience of this pure knowing, time and space disappear, for time and space are the fundamental characteristics of the pattern-matching mind. Here the rules of life we have been conditioned into do not apply. A far greater reality is the pure existence of life itself unfolding. The only “rules” in this far greater reality are pure openness to the raw experience of being at one with everything for its own sake. There is no purpose to this; purpose is a mind game we impose on life. All we know is we exist, and we are happening (in the form of a Universe of forms appearing within us), and understanding this, we feel love and perceive the beauty of everything. This is the fearless reality, for we realise instantly that the only reason we felt fear was we could not see this reality which is eternally present and instead could only see the temporary patterns of our minds, and we believed that was reality. But it is not.
Once we have seen the actual reality, the relative truth of our minds can be reinterpreted, and we can divest ourselves of habits of defensive thinking that developed when all we could see was the relative reality.
Habits that we had picked up from a culture founded on such thinking that constricted us unnecessarily. Deep patterns such as the tendency to critically compare ourselves to the superficial forms of others, to judge ourselves based on these same superficial forms and internalised rules and based on such thoughts induce unpleasant feelings of something lacking in us. To fear physical death at all times for having lost our connection to the true permanent reality, we constantly walk on a deep sense of impermanence, worrying incessantly that we will be somehow damaged. This fear and sense of lack reduce our capacity to meet our needs healthily, which adds further to our consternation. The cause is to attach insecurity to people and situations that are restricting us and miss opportunities. They cause us to spend far too much time living in the past, reliving our traumas and worrying about the future. For a while, these habits of fear and lack that have indoctrinated our minds when we did not realise our true reality will still activate, but once we have glimpsed our true reality, they will lose their power and eventually fade. This process can be quickened by our active engagement in forming new habits recognising that we can actively take part in the re-programming of our minds so they do not block our free celebration of understanding our true nature, the universal love we feel as a result of this understanding the and the beauty of all forms of the Universe we now perceive.
Based on these Universal qualities, we can begin reforming our characters to reflect these qualities, which is essential if we are to enjoy our realisation of truth. We can do our best by surrounding ourselves with positive examples and actively reinforcing our behaviour to ensure that these qualities are always celebrated in our life and move as quickly as we can away from habits that take us back into the dark suffering of forgetting our true nature. This is a conscious process and is helpful to be shared collectively with other minds and bodies to aid it, where these minds and bodies are in service to the same realisation of pure knowing as the one we are immediately aware of. Thus we can enjoy this Universe free of existential fear and feelings of lack based on superficial judgement and comparison. Living in the world of form is a practical and creative process that we have created a logical and imaginative mind to navigate. Based on the experience being our true nature, we can enjoy these two aspects of practicality and creativity to their full potential to the best of our ability and capacity, always informed by the understanding of our actual reality, the universal love this gives rise to and the beautify we perceive, and free of fear and lack and insecure attachment.
Love
Freyja
