THE TOTALITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Once you have located your sense of I Am-ness as a separate entity within your heart area, you immediately perceive that it is a different kind of experience than your experience of your body or mind. Focusing on that I Amness sensation causes you to begin to feel a global sense of presence with and around your physical body.
This presence is sometimes referred to as the Subtle Body. It is experiencing yourself something like an energy being, a cloud of awareness permeating your body and the world.
Focusing on the experience of your Subtle Body, your sense of presence, you know you are not just your physical body anymore. You are also something else entirely: consciousness itself.
Not only are you feeling your body from the inside, but you are also something more subtle, an energetic being that seems to permeate the body as a separate entity, and also extends beyond the body. That I Am sensation is the same as your feeling of your growing sense of presence.
At this point you are able to "step back" in a sense, and watch the totality of your experience of your body, your presence, and the world as a total experience, as if you were enwrapped by and permeated by consciousness itself. Your consciousness is self-contained, you are aware of the totality of your consciousness.
This consciousness feels more pure than the body and at first it feels like you have been filled by the divine, by grace, by purity.
At this point you understand consciousness in an entirely different way. The world and your body do not seem so concrete and permanent as when you only considered yourself as a body with a mind. They become merely appearances in you as consciousness.
Consciousness then appears to be ever so changeable and flowing from waking to dream, to deep sleep, as well as being altered by medications, alcohol, hallucinogens such as LSD and Marijuana, etc. Consciousness is not fixed nor any object in it. Thus the whole world begins to be experienced as illusory, temporary and flowing compared to how you felt it to be real and solid becoming aware of the I Am sensation.
The waking world begins to be perceived in a way similar to how you experience your dream worlds: as temporary images, which at Robert called optical illusions. The only "reality" appears to be the totality of consciousness, its total manifestation, and it and you no longer seem so real.
This is not the final step.
The final step Robert saves for last, and I won't take you there now.
Once you have located your sense of I Am-ness as a separate entity within your heart area, you immediately perceive that it is a different kind of experience than your experience of your body or mind. Focusing on that I Amness sensation causes you to begin to feel a global sense of presence with and around your physical body.
This presence is sometimes referred to as the Subtle Body. It is experiencing yourself something like an energy being, a cloud of awareness permeating your body and the world.
Focusing on the experience of your Subtle Body, your sense of presence, you know you are not just your physical body anymore. You are also something else entirely: consciousness itself.
Not only are you feeling your body from the inside, but you are also something more subtle, an energetic being that seems to permeate the body as a separate entity, and also extends beyond the body. That I Am sensation is the same as your feeling of your growing sense of presence.
At this point you are able to "step back" in a sense, and watch the totality of your experience of your body, your presence, and the world as a total experience, as if you were enwrapped by and permeated by consciousness itself. Your consciousness is self-contained, you are aware of the totality of your consciousness.
This consciousness feels more pure than the body and at first it feels like you have been filled by the divine, by grace, by purity.
At this point you understand consciousness in an entirely different way. The world and your body do not seem so concrete and permanent as when you only considered yourself as a body with a mind. They become merely appearances in you as consciousness.
Consciousness then appears to be ever so changeable and flowing from waking to dream, to deep sleep, as well as being altered by medications, alcohol, hallucinogens such as LSD and Marijuana, etc. Consciousness is not fixed nor any object in it. Thus the whole world begins to be experienced as illusory, temporary and flowing compared to how you felt it to be real and solid becoming aware of the I Am sensation.
The waking world begins to be perceived in a way similar to how you experience your dream worlds: as temporary images, which at Robert called optical illusions. The only "reality" appears to be the totality of consciousness, its total manifestation, and it and you no longer seem so real.
This is not the final step.
The final step Robert saves for last, and I won't take you there now.
Dear Ed,
ReplyDeleteWhen will you be writing about "the final step"?
Thank you