I had an experience when I awoke late last night. I put quotation marks around “experience” because I know Holger will jump on that term, which I use as a concession, and stomp on it.
Yesterday, I was reading Ramana Maharshi’s essay, “Self-Enquiry,” and he describes how the mind comes about from identification with the “external world,” with our thoughts, feelings, experiences, decision-making. I was able to see that I was not that mind, and separate from it, just let it go, let it do its thing. From that point, it was easy enough to let go of the body. I had also heard Rupert say in a discussion that the boundaries of the body need to dissolve and then we feel like the world is our body. When I let go of the mind, am just a witness to it, it’s relatively easy to release the identification with the body. The mind is attached to the body, identifies with it, in its attempt to manipulate the world of experience.
I was, for a timeless moment, the Witness. I witnessed the stillness of the night. I witnessed the nothingness of the mind and the “not-me-ness” of the body. But really, I was all of it, there was no separation. And there was no “I,” there was only the not-I of the Witness. All of these thoughts occurred to the “not-I” (the mind). There was no “I” because the Witnessing was a verb, emanating outward, not a noun that could be identified with. So who was having these thoughts? Who was describing this non-event? The not-I had the thoughts and described it, as there were no words that could reach it. The words occurred in the not-I, then dissolved into the not-space, taking place in not-time.
Note: This experience happened months ago. That particular state of pure being has not returned. It was a great gift. It just occurred; it cannot be forced or “repeated,” though maybe I’ll be graced with it again.
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