The fundamental dichotomy of my being is the division between who I am, and who I believe I am. When I awaken, I forget who I am and come to believe that I am a person among other people, in a place among other places, in a time among other times. I constantly experience desire, yet never achieve the relief I seek when I do acquire the object of that desire. Despite this, I continue to awaken and set goals in the hopes of satisfying my desire.
I can clearly see that I am trapped in a cycle. Despite all the changes I experience, I never get closer to what it is I seek: peace. I contend that the peace I seek is always just around a corner, yet 100% of the desires I have had have failed to deliver the peace I sought. The problem is that I am ill and trapped in a state of delusion. My awakening is a sickness that I experience as continuous, insatiable desire, an attachment to and value of incidental forms that manifest in my awakening, and an extreme disorientation.
When my fever begins, I experience splitting into two separate parts: an internal secondself space of changing thoughts, feelings, and desires, and an external thirdself place of changing forms and light. My illness is the complete, end-to-end experience of a moment that stretches from my awakening and to my asleepening. During this prolonged, changing moment, I continuously manifest objects or experiences I desire in hopes they will cure my suffering, but never do. Presently, I falsely believe that I must finish and sell a piece of software to achieve what it is I am looking for. I know that successfully selling it will not in truth satisfy my desire or put me any closer to the solution I seek.
My illness is an aggregation of immediate to long-term desires that span from biological relief, to physical indulgence, social and familial validation, and mental distraction. The same desire drives my entire performance during my illness. When I reflect on what I am doing and why, I find myself unable to answer even the most basic questions such as who I am and where I am. Or why I do what I do? What is this place? This is the disorientation; the inability to understand even the most basic questions about my being.
However when I begin to look for the truth of my nature I find that while there is a lot that changes, there are also things that do not change. When I anchor my understanding to these solid pieces of my experience, I find myself able to make sense of many things I could not before. With time and effort, I begin to see that the crux of the problem is that I am uncertain of who I am. Not knowing who I am, I am confused about how to behave, and where I fit in. I fail to recognize my true power, and entangled in a performative existence devoid somehow of meaning and authenticity. I watch myself acting, aware that I am acting.
At some point the problem becomes clear, and I have to make a choice about who I really am, and what I really desire that will give me the peace I seek. I see that there is a dichotomy I confront. I must choose where I am of my awakening, or the creator of my awakening:
- Am I the Projector or the Projection?
- Am I the Writer or the Written?
- Am I the Experiencer or the Experience?
- Am I the Creator or the Creation?
- Am I Peace or Desire?
As the Projector, the Writer, the Experiencer, the Creator, I am not “of my awakening”. I am not a person among other people, in a place among other places, in a time among other times. There is nothing beyond the horizons of my experience. I am the being looking into this cavity I call my awakening, not a being within it. It is my true body I sense behind, and all around me in my awakening. My true body is what I am suspended within; what holds me aloft. What presses against my secondself and thirdself body at every point.
Once I see the dichotomy of my identity, I must make a choice. Either I am a person among people, endlessly scouring the lands of this world and my own soul for the peace I seek; or I am the creator of my awakening, lost within.
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