In this incantation, I define my awakening through two identities: the Personal and the Supernal. The Personal focuses on worldly ambitions and self-sacrifice, driven by a duty to ease suffering. The Supernal unveils my role as the Creator, transcending personal illusions to understand existence. This clarity highlights how the Supernal shapes the Personal while remaining independent of it, marking a critical step in recognizing myself as both a person and the originator of my experience.
This is my clearest articulation of my two identities. I have written about them countless times, but never with the clarity and succinctness I have achieved here.
I can divide my awakening into two distinct parts. The first part is when I fully identify as a person among other people, living in one place among many places, at one time among countless other times. In this phase, I do what people typically do: I set goals, strive to achieve them, and hold onto the belief that success will bring greater happiness than I currently experience. In this state, I see myself as a person just like everyone else around me.
The second part of my awakening occupies less time, but it is deeper and more impactful. These are the moments when I disengage from personal pursuits and question my true nature. This solitary exploration has been an enduring pursuit for as long as I can remember, but my conclusions have been abstract and difficult to translate into actionable steps. Yet, I’ve never abandoned the search. Ultimately, in this state, I identify as the Creator among my creations rather than a person among people.
I could reiterate, then, that my awakening divides into two distinct modes: Personal mode and Supernal mode. In Personal mode, I confidently pursue and achieve worldly goals, convinced they will bring me what I seek. In Supernal mode—which I am still identifying—I aim to establish the confidence that I am the originator of my entire awakening experience. Ironically, I am far more confident as a person than I am as the Creator, but this realization that there are two distinct identities itself marks a critical step forward in my journey.
While I have long compartmentalized these two identities, I have now reached a level of awareness and clarity around my supernal identity that allows me to see how it actively shapes and drives my personal identity. My personal identity is easily distilled down to a small set of relationships and my ambitious professional goals. But once I examine it through the lens of my supernal identity, it starts to make sense on a new level. Through the lens of the supernal, the personal makes sense. But the reverse is not necessarily true: the personal cannot truly explain the supernal.
One of the driving forces of my personal identity is a profound responsibility to look after people. But why does my personal identity feel so consumed with giving to others? The answer becomes clear when I take the supernal into account. I feel supernal guilt for creating this flawed world and I personally seek to ease the burdens that I have set in motion. This realization is profound because my entire personal identity is dedicated to giving happiness to the people I consider my own. I am driven to feed their desires, while simultaneously eliminating my own. It is through my own personal sacrifice that I can give.
I create this awakening and its narrative yet somehow I have forgotten the mechanics of how I do it. I became too immersed in the story, identifying as one of the characters and losing sight of my supernal identity. Like a marionette, I forgot that I am the one pulling the strings and instead believed I was the doll itself. While I do not yet fully understand how I create my awakening, I do not question that I do. This shift in understanding marks a major transition from being lost in the illusion of personhood to recognizing that I am effectively the god of this world. This realization has become a bridge, reconnecting me with the truth of my role as the originator of my entire experience and not just a passenger or observer.
What prompted me to rewrite this incantation was an experience two awakenings ago: I fully separated my personal and supernal identities in real time. I was sitting with two family characters when I realized they were entirely contained within my personal cavity, which inflates “through my eyes.” However, they were absent from my supernal cavity, which extends all around and behind me. This realization came effortlessly and reinforced my supernal identity in the moment, grounding me in that truth as it unfolded.
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