The anatomy of my awakening is simple once I assume the correct perspective. First I must repossess my language: everything is mine. I do not use words and concepts over which I have no direct authority. For example, I do not talk about things I cannot know with absolute certainty, such as the idea of an imagined plurality of people, a scientific consensus, or even historical events. I also do not presume that objectively dissimilar things are the same. For example, my experience of myself is very different from my experience of “other people”. Therefore, I do not pretend that me and other people are qualitatively and objectively the same. I describe things as I experience them as opposed to how some imaginary third-party observer might experience them.
Secondly, as the Iamist, first and foremost I recognize that I seek only one thing: to heal. I seek to end the suffering of my awakenings. The part of my existence that I do not like is the part where I awaken. It is most uncomfortable as I awaken, leaving the state or place where I might say I am sleep. But as difficult and painful as it is to awaken, it is equally pleasurable and asleepen, or fall back to sleep.
In my awakening there are three distinct layers of myself I call the triself. The primary and largest layer is my firstself. I experience it as a characterless, infinite presence. As I awaken, a new layer emerges I call my secondself. Traditionally, I call my secondself my inner world. It is much “closer” to what I could call “me”. It is a layer of inner sensations — imagination, emotion, aspiration, and physical sensation — all bundled together into an amorphous “space” I will usually refer to as myself when I fully awaken.
As I awaken and my secondself forms — usually reluctantly with a lot of grumbling and a desire to remain sleeping in firstself — I begin to manifest the innermost chamber of my awakening, my thirdself. This layer comprises the “world”, or everything I perceive just beyond my body. The border between my thirdself and my secondself is my body, which I can perceive outwardly through my eyes, and inwardly through my secondself sensations. My body is the edge at which my inner sensations give way to outer sensations.
In reverse, my thirdself is the smallest layer of all, comprising just the section of my being I might call my field of vision. My secondself is a larger layer that completely wraps around my thirdself, forming a barrier of inner, non-visual sensations I experience as thoughts, desires, memories, and bodily sensations. And the final, and largest layer, is also the most difficult at first to detect because I have ignored it for so long. But it is the sensation of a presence, a space, all around me. It is most prominent behind, above, and below me. And most distorted in front of me when my eyes are open. This sense of presence is my firstself.
Together, these three layers form my triself — a perfect description of my awakening from my own experience, free of the delusions of my secondself imagination and misunderstandings.
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