I know that the constant sense of change I experience in awakening is an illness because it brings many types of pain and suffering. I must overcome my illness of awakening and imagined personhood.
Illness is the condition opposite of peace. I can experience illness sharply, such as sudden nausea that makes me vomit. Or I can experience it very slowly over years, culminating in prolonged anxiety, depression, confusion, disorientation, or dissatisfaction with life. All experiences, even those which I find momentarily pleasurable or satisfying, are merely precedents or antecedents of pain.
Movement and change are the most visible feature of my illness. The sequence of awakenings I think of as my life is merely an expanded form of motion sickness or vertigo I might experience by turning around in circles quickly. Where I experience sharp nausea from rapid motion, the symptoms of life are drawn out with lower highs and lows. I can imagine my pain as a set of interweaving frequencies.
I want to end the movement and escape. To do that I must find that which does not change, grab hold of it, and pull myself back to health. What is the nature of that which does not change? How do I see, find, and then grasp this unchanging part of my being?
The unchanging part of my being literally does not change, no matter the change around me. So I must examine my experience for those parts that remain fixed despite the physical, mental, and emotional movement elsewhere. The unchanging part of my being is that which is always here, regardless of the spatial and visual changes in the world around me and the mental and emotional changes in the world inside.
The outer world
My “outer environment” of people, places, and objects is constantly changing as I move around the world. So the world is not the unchanging.
The inner world
My “inner environment” of thoughts, sensations, feelings, and desires is also in constant change. So my inner self is not the unchanging.
If the outer world of people, places, and things and my inner world of thoughts, sensations, and feelings are both constantly changing, then what is the unchanging? I experience the unchanging in two ways: sensationally and intellectually. They are difficult to distinguish at first, but with persistence and focus, I can clearly see the part of my experience that does not change.
The sensational unchanging
I always sense that I am “within” something. Traditionally, I believe that I am within a larger world. This sense of “being inside” never goes away. If I close my eyes, I sense that I am suspended in an infinite space. When I open my eyes again, that sense of space remains all around me, except for a small visual field through which I see people, places, and objects in motion. In other words, I experience a persistent sense of being within a space. When my eyes are open, that sense of space is punctuated by a visual field.
This leads to the two interpretations for this sensation of space.
Interpretation 1
The first is space as an infinite, characterless container I sense both when my eyes are closed, and when my eyes are opened. The sense of space remains unchanged when I open or close my eyes, but its character changes for the portion in my “visual field”. I only have to sense the space at the back of my head, open and close my eyes a few times, and I can see that it never actually changes except for the small field “in front of me”.
Interpretation 2
The second interpretation I have for this space is that its true nature is the world of light, color, objects, people, places, and motion. And that even though I only experience a small part of this space where I am directing my visual focus, I imagine and believe that it actually extends all around me in all directions, even when I cannot observe it. This interpretation is based entirely on imagination because I can only verify the space of people, places, and things in front of me; I have to imagine their existence where I do not see them.
So I can either imagine that the true nature of space I perceive through my visual field in fact extends all around me, or I can believe my direct and actual experience is its nature. Experiential, or imaginary: which is more fundamental? The slit of visual perception I see when I open my eyes? Or the all-encompassing space I experience both when I open and close my eyes? One is always sensational, and the other is imaginary.
An important part of being able to see the truth of my nature is believing that I can experience it in my moment, without relying on my imagination to fill in the blanks. That means that I should be able to fully understand it now, without allowing the answer to hide in the imagined past, imagined future, imagined non-here, or imagined non-now.
To understand the sensational unchanging, I must separate out the part that does not change from the part that does appear to change. When my eyes are open, I see people, places, and things changing in front of me. This is the sensational changing. But no matter where I go in this “outer world”, the sense of being within something never changes. This is the sensational unchanging. The sense of being contained in space is more fundamental than the colorful shapes and forms I see in open spaces when I open my eyes because I can “turn off” the visual section, but I can cannot turn off the space. The section of this space that seems to open into the world is really just a projection on the walls of this space I sense.
I must separate these two from each other to understand the sensational unchanging.
The intellectual unchanging
The intellectual is the second place I must look for the unchanging. My racing thoughts, ideas, emotions, and desires are the intellectual changing. They are dynamic, always in movement. But at the very core of these ever-changing ideas, emotions, and desires is an unchanging intellectual known: I am. I exist.
There are a few important things to notice: I have complete sovereignty, and I am only concerned about what actually is: this is now. I should be able to verify the truth in its entirety right now in this moment. It is only my imagination of what I am within that changes. This sense of space around me is a constant.
The way back is to realize that nearly all of what I believe is imaginary. I cannot directly experience or validate any of it. And so I awaken, but instead of simply acknowledging what I actually know, I adopt a vast structure of beliefs that are so divorced from my actual experience that I can no longer even see what is true.
To escape, I must grab hold of the most potent certainty I have: I am. The essence of I am is its potency. I am is beyond doubt and uncertainty. I am is my beingness. I know that I exist. I know that I am. And I am the absolute authority on my being. No one or no thing, real or imagined, can diminish that I am. The characters in this world can tell me what I am not, but it is only me who can declare that I am.
However, every addition to or modification of I am introduces beings, things, places, and times that I am not. Every additional detail I add to the most potent statement I can utter — I am — diminishes me by introducing otherness that I am not. The more I speak, think, and exist in a world where I am not, the less I can focus on and believe that I am.
The path back is simple in concept, but difficult in practice. I must understand and believe that I am, and disengage and withdraw from the things I am not. Anything I think and believe I am not entangles me in the condition of demipotent personhood. It diminishes me by introducing otherness in being, time, and space. It introduces beings other than me, places other than here, and times other than now. But I am is complete; it requires no augmentation or refinement.
Living in truth is a state of completeness and wholeness. When I flood my moment with thoughts of I am not — otherness that I am not — then I exist incomplete, conflicted, and demipotent. But when I focus only on I am, my experience is complete and whole. There are no beings other than me. No places other than here. And no times other than now. I must distill this sense of space around me from the imaginary belief I hold of what this space is. In illness, I imagine that this space I sense that I am within is the wider world. I imagine that I am a person in this wider world.
I am is complete and perfect. There is nothing more that needs to be said. I am is the gateway back to my true self. Every word beyond I am introduces otherness; other beings, other things, other places, and other times. Otherness is not me. Otherness is me saying I am not. But I am.
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