The other day I came up with the best way to describe my awakening yet.
Imagine I blow up a balloon and I look inside of it through the hole. What do I see? I see the interior walls of the balloon, tight with pressure. Imagine I am the being looking inward, into this balloon. I exist at the opening of the balloon, looking inward. The horizon I look at before me is painted on the walls of the balloon. I can look all around the balloon and every wall has something painted on it.
If I look downward, I see what I would call my body drawn on the walls of the balloon. I have two arms and hands, two legs and feet, a torso. A physical body I would call my own, and all drawn onto the walls of the same balloon that wraps all around me to the distant horizon drawn onto the walls of the balloon. On the walls of the balloon are everything I see. Every place, the sky, the trees and houses, people. Mountains in the distance supporting great forests. All these scenes are drawn on the taut walls of the balloon I am inside looking into. This is my Thirdself.
But there is more than just this Thirdself; this space I see before me, projected onto the walls of this balloon. Behind me, where I exist at the opening into the balloon, is another part of me. it seems to exist outside the walls upon which everything visual is projected. It seems to be on the other side of what I would call my body from the inside of the balloon. On the inside, I see my body if I look at it, but on the outside, somehow behind the Thirdself surface is another “me” I cannot “see” in the same way — my Secondself. I don’t see this part of me, but I feel it instead. I feel it as sensations in some parts, desires in other, and thoughts in other.
My Secondself is a space full of thoughts and sensations wrapped around a smaller balloon-like chamber where I experience Thirdself.
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