Dear Rupert
The question ‘How far is a sensation from that which knows it?’ is fascinating to me. My immediate response is ‘About 6 foot 1 inch’ because ‘I’ am in a place behind the eyes. Yet at the same time I know that this isn’t true, and part of my problem right now is reconciling such differences. I will keep looking and see what happens.
Your response helped me to frame something else that I have difficulty putting into words. There is an infinite sea of something that doesn’t really go into words. I imagine I could spend a long time giving it words and none would even begin to do it any justice (sorry to call it ‘it’). Seeing as we have to say something, sheer joy, absolute love, consciousness, intelligence, excitement, compassion, God and it’s black!
The mind-body-world (to shamelessly pilfer your writing) is actually a sort of live cloud of experiencing or consciousness that happens in or on that which I just described. Objects (and everything in the ‘world’) are constantly being ‘made’ and falling away, always fresh, always new.
So how far is a sensation from that which experiences it? No distance, of course, because it is in that which experiences it. It would be like asking how far a dream is from the dreamer (again sorry to nick your ideas). Am I in the head? No. The head is in me, and most of the time there isn’t really a head but sensations that come and go.
Can I find me? No. I am always just around the corner, so to speak. I am where there isn’t seeing happening. If seeing moves to see, then I am where seeing was and seeing is where I was: a light trying to illuminate itself.
So as you see, I have this theory, so to speak, and I can say from memory that there a constriction or cramp can drop away, leaving a freedom which is ‘being what is happening’. I yearn to live like that all the time. If you could help me tease that apart I would be indebted to you. Thank you again for your time, and I hope none of this causes offence. I’m often left with the feeling that it makes people uncomfortable.
Ed
Dear Ed,
Thanks for your email. How could it possibly cause offence!?
Ed: The question ‘How far is a sensation from that which knows it?’ is fascinating to me. My immediate response is ‘About 6 foot 1 inch’ because ‘I’ am in a place behind the eyes. Yet at the same time I know that this isn’t true, and part of my problem right now is reconciling such differences. I will keep looking and see what happens.
Rupert: The immediate answer may be ‘About 6 foot 1 inch’, but stay longer with the experience of the head or your eyes, as I know you have done. If fact, later in your email you write, ‘Am I in the head? No. The head is in me, and most of the time there isn’t really a head but sensations that come and go.’
So now you claim to have two experiences: in one you are in the head, in the other the head is in you. These two experiences do not happen simultaneously. They happen one at a time. Take the position of each experience in turn and simply ask yourself which is true and which is a belief.
I am not surprised that you are having a problem reconciling these two possibilities, because they are irreconcilable. They are two mutually exclusive possibilities. Be simple like a child and scrupulous like a scientist, and the truth of the matter will become clear.
* * *
So as you see, I have this theory, so to speak, and I can say from memory that there a constriction or cramp can drop away, leaving a freedom which is ‘being what is happening’. I yearn to live like that all the time.
It would seem that you have a clear understanding, based on experience, that everything takes place in you, that is, in this knowing presence which cannot be found as an object and yet is undeniably present.
However, there still seems to be a subtle distinction between whatever it is that is appearing and the ‘you’ that it appears in. There is still some distance, some ‘not-me-ness’. The object is experienced inside you but still seems to be made out of something other than you.
‘I’ and ‘what is happening’ have not dissolved into one another. Or, to put it more accurately, it has not been clearly seen that they are already dissolved into one another, that they are not two, that there were never two things to begin with.
Ask yourself when any object of the body, mind or world appears, ‘How far is this appearance from experiencing?’ And then, ‘How far is experiencing from myself?’ See clearly that the appearance, experiencing and myself are one.
Now, to take it deeper, ask yourself, ‘What substance is present in the appearance other than experiencing?’ And then, ‘What substance is present in experiencing other than myself?’
See clearly that all appearances are made out of experiencing, and experiencing is simply another name for myself, ‘I’.
Take as much time as is necessary to sit with your experience in this way until it becomes obvious, suddenly or gradually, that experience is one seamless, indivisible totality made only out of experiencing. And if we look for the substance of experiencing we find only knowing presence, ‘I’.
With love,
Rupert
