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Ok, well, some might say this doesn't belong in a forum for Pagan topics, and that would be fine. But I'll say that, I think Paganism as much as many other things, is about discovery and finding truth of the nature of things. So, as I've written in my journal, here's my experience with higher consciousness.
So, a little less than a week ago, I had my first true experience with higher consciousness. Then, at least, when I'd returned from it, I knew I'd document it, but I've spent much time letting it wade through my being, letting it sink in, to assimilate it. Now I realize I'd found fragments of the structure of higher consciousness before, but never had I actually found the path, but then I did. Now that I've spent a sufficient amount of time mulling it over, I'm going to describe it so I can look back to reference it. First, I'll state what I think higher consciousness is, and what ego is.
Higher consciousness in its truest form is the total absence of self, it's the total absence of ego. Nearly everyone here on the planet experiences life through ego, because we are ego. Ego is the way we react when someone asks "Who are you?" and you respond. Any way you respond is some form of ego, because ego is a form of reaction. Even if you don't brag, or boast, or declare oneself, all that ego is, is your reaction to such a question. Even in it's modest form, ego is still ego. Summed up, ego is what we all experience every day, it's the biggest part of our personality, it's our reactions to anything and our role in life that we play.
So with those explained.. I'll get into my own experience into higher consciousness. For a while I've been keeping a journal called "Epiphany" where I write down all of my realizations and truths that I discover, because I've realized many things in my life and became none the wiser from it. So I started recording all of my realizations of truths, for that purpose. Being able to realize many truths at once is what truly began my journey there. Specifically, it started one night when I was up thinking and couldn't sleep, so I started talking to Zen about my thoughts.
My thoughts were; I'd recognized two true parts of my inner nature and that is of a seeker, and a healer. I wondered what the ultimate purpose of being a seeker and a healer was, so I looked into their goals and effects. The purpose of being a seeker is to seek out wisdom, knowledge, lessons, even make mistakes and learn from them, to share this knowledge, wisdom and lessons with other human beings, ultimately for the betterment of humanity. Healing, is to fill the gaps in both body, mind, spirit, emotions, to restore the balance to its natural and continous state of health, again, ultimately, for the betterment of mankind. So this led me to another question, what is the purpose of the betterment of humanity? Or, more directly, what is the purpose of humanity? What is humanity's collective goals, what are we here for, and what do we hope to accomplish?
It was then that I realized a very important truth about meaning, and that truth is in these words; "This exists here." Nothing can be more truer than that, and to me, this can answer every question someone could have about purpose, meaning or the meaning of mankind; the meaning of life. The question "What is the meaning of life?" is always asked by a human, from the human perspective, so it can be easily translated into "What is the meaning of humanity?" Which is human life. So this is my answer to that question as well. That answer is golden, because there is a vast depth behind it. That depth comes from the constant fact that, this exists here. Why should I be myself? What is my purpose? Does what I do really matter in the big picture? Answer to all three; This exists here. This will always exist here. "This," meaning our experience, our perspective, our life, what we experience in every moment. "Exists," meaning, it is. "Here," meaning that, what we experience, in every moment, is; here. Where else does it exist? Everywhere? Maybe nowhere? But it does exist here, and it will, until it's gone.
When we are all gone, then not much will change except, "This doesn't exist here." The whole phrase of this exists here can be translated to mean that, what we experience in every moment is here. The meaning of our existance, is the meaning of our existance. We are here to experience ourselves, we are here to experience our meaning, that is our meaning. We are here to learn, to create goals, to create experience through interaction, using ego as our tool. Ego isn't a bad thing, infact, ego is a very fascinating construct, extremely useful, so complex - nonetheless entirely pointless; exactly like playing a game. It is what we're all here for. Ego is like our script, while we're on stage. Ego tell us what to say, what reactions to have, what emotional scheme to experience, it tells us what our character is and we all do this. This way, using ego as our script, we all form our characters and through character interaction, we all learn very valuable lessons, gain wisdom and insights, we see many sides of the coin and go through our personal experiences. This is much like a typical play. Life; the masterpiece that never ceases to deliver continous insightful wisdom upon all that spawn within it.
I had realized all this and much more when I entered higher consciousness; seperation from ego. At first I didn't know what I was experiencing. I felt out of it, like a zombie and even though I continued to share my thoughts with Zen, his words seemed to become further and further away from me, like he was someone else, or, I no longer existed, but he did. In that moment I stepped off stage, by accident, but through absolute truth. It was like he understood, but at the same time, through some entirely different pattern of thinking. At this time as I split further and further away from everything I knew. It was exactly like this experience; walking through woods and brush, until you suddenly fall off of a cliff, and you're falling and you're in shock and flail, only you find that you are not falling, you are floating, and that makes no sense at all. You continue to flail naturally, from both the feeling of falling and the fear of falling, until eventually you don't care how you are floating, you are afraid to fall more than anything, so you stay very very still. Then slowly you drift back towards the cliff you fell off of, and put your feet back on the ground. This is very reassuring, comfortable and much more familar.. But then suddenly you realize what a truly amazing experience you just had and you are very very awe struck, basically, freaking out.
Although this is a metaphor, emotionally and egotistically, this is exactly what I experienced. To detail another aspect of this experience as it was happening; I split from myself, in almost all recognizeable ways, all that I was, was gone. My eyes must have been so empty. I was away, but in a place that was far from empty of myself. I was encompassing all that I was in every way, I shifted my experience from ego, to higher consciousness and everything was clear, like Zen said, it was like total clarity. I was aware of myself, not in the sense that I know what will happen to me, but it was as if I began observing all that I am from the third person, I saw myself reacting to myself, I was outside of ego and saw its fear and understood every fiber of ego's reactions to my experience. I was not afraid, but ego was, I was calm, but ego was excited and amazed at my experience. I was looking down on myself, with all clarity, all sight, into everything I was at the time. The ego construct is designed to perpetuate itself in every way possible, but this is what makes it so incredibly useful, because we experience and learn through it. It ensures that we experience as much as possible while we are here and more than anything, it is designed to fear its own death. From most peoples perspective it would be like really dying, all that you are and know yourself as and all that everyone knows you as, dissapears, because that is ego, and to ego, that is an extremely scary experience. The ego of others would feel the same way observing this effect on someone, it would be like realizing the possibility of your own death, which is, naturally, scary.
So after I had drifted back to the cliff, as in, stopped experiencing through higher consciousness so fully, I became intertwined in a sort of inbetween zone, where ego was at conflict with higher consciousness. It was then I realized I had to make a decision; the decision to let go and evolve to higher consciousness, or the decision to remain with my ego. Even though the ego desires more than anything, its own life, the progressive part of ego would tell me to progress and do what is 'good,' what is 'better.' I knew I had to make a proper decision, so I weighed both ego and higher consciousness, why I had been experiencing either, what they were for. I have explained to my best ability both of those purposes of these things, earlier. I realized then that, I have very little left to learn from ego, but that I still have some things to experience, more specifically; I have fear. Fear is the deepest root of ego, and appropriately, it roots me to ego. So with that realization, I made the decision that I was not fully ready for higher consciousness, but that this experience happened for a reason. That experience has boosted my experience through ego dramatically, meaning I will learn faster from it and experience it even more intensely. Ego is emphasized to me now, because I have experienced it as such an entirely different entity than who I am. So now I embrace ego and when I'm ready to evolve to higher consciousness, I will. For now my place is here.
Ever since then, from that moment of all clarity, all realization, the learning of my own truth. I have actually done worse, I've been avoiding my responsibilities, I've lost clarity, I've been making bad decision (all so typical of ego). I've found myself dissapointed with this, but I suppose, outside of my poor experience and poor choices, the higher truth is that, this is all actually a good thing, not to be stuck here in a rut, but to be experiencing it. Failure and mistakes, bad traits and decisions are all strong marks of progress. But if a mark of progress is ignored, it will never bloom like a flower, into the valuable full experience and lesson. So it's good I'm going through this, I just have to make sure that I don't ignore this and stick to it like glue, but flow through it like water.
So, in conclusion, though you, a reader, may understand all these concepts, words, descriptions and imagined them well, higher consciousness can never be found in words. But this entry has a purpose to those besides myself, actually. Many years ago, I was reading things like this, and even though I never fully understood them, or at least never experienced what they were describing, it was something that made me more aware, and sped up the process of experiencing higher consciousness and learning, and in turn, made me aware of ego, which in turn intensified my experience through ego many times, which in the end speeds up the process. Now that I've written all this, I've documented it for myself, and written it as an awareness to others. This has been my catalyst, a reminder to myself, and a summary of all I've realized through my experience, and the time I spent thinking through it afterwards.
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