5.
But the oddest thing of
all occurs in this “timeless moment” of being fully aware of the
separate self: it disappears. What happened to it? It found itself in an
atmosphere of awareness that made it feel shy, embarrassed and awkward,
and it stopped, engulfed by the deep silence of the authentic self.
The simple act of sustained listening to the silence, which is the
ground and context for all sound, both “inwardly and outwardly”, stops
the internal dialogue of the separate self non-entity which can only
occupy the field of awareness as self-concerned consciousness by talking
to itself all the time. As soon as the internal dialogue stops, the
separate self is gone from the field of awareness.
Now the deep self, the Silent Individual, is freed into the senses,
undistorted by the separate self, but the mind keeps producing it: that
is what self-image memory is. There is a self-image (akasha) camera
constantly running, recording, the image-maker within the mind. Later,
if the self is not aware-awake, it will end up enclosed in the separate
self non-entity talking to itself about what it imagines has just been
experienced. The separate self non-entity, which is a perceptual
distortion of the past, reappears filled with the anxiety, mild or
acute, that it ceased to exist for a time and sets itself to the anxious
task of retroactively re-establishing its illusion of continuity. Thus,
this image content is being added to a separate, subjective self-image,
and there is no end to that. So I have to acknowledge that in order to
be free of the separate self, I have to be aware of the
culturally-conditioned part of the mind which is creating the images
which have become congealed into the separate self.
Now there is also real memory of course, which is the undistorted
after-image of clear, non-reactive presence. But as the self was fully
present, that memory does not endlessly reappear as anxious,
self-enclosing concern. There is nothing “left over” to congeal into a
separate self non-entity.
This Silent Individual Self, at-one in the essence of its own being in
Be-ness, is in an unconditioned state of resolute remaining-open to all
that is by abiding in silence and deep-awakened hearing and receiving of
the world and its beings. This real-time spiritual heartbeat loves, not
emotionally, although it includes emotion, but rather in the sense of a
resolute remaining-open everywhere and all the time to what is, without
the distortion of conditioned acceptance and rejection. There is
authentic compassion, which is the letting be of beings to be the beings
they are.
Whereas the separate self is closed and is closure and is constantly
attempting to close and enclose this deeper part of the self which is
resolutely open, the authentic self is aware-awake. What is the Silent
Individual being aware-awake to and aware-awake as?
First of all, it is not a self-grasping non-entity. It is an awareness
space, present in its wholeness and silence, and it has no center. It
does not require one. It is not a fixity. It is fully and wholly alive.
It does not even need a self-image to know who it is because it already
is its ownmost essential “who”, and so it isn’t involved in or
distracted by any search for identity. This self-awareness being space
spontaneously gathers what is fragmented and scattered in the field of
awareness into a whole. It unifies. Or we could say that the Silent
Individual realizes the essential unity of life that was previously
obscured by the separate self. It is a living movement in the opposite
direction to the separate, subjective self that is divisive and
competitive and insecure and worried about itself all the time. There is
no integration of the separate self non-entity, as it has been rendered
non-operable. The Silent Self is free of the sub-human sub-awareness and
distraction of the separate self non-entity.
This deeper part of the Self is free completely from that shattered
mirror and is fully aware that there is absolutely no controlling of
this “breathing out” and “breathing in” of presence which is the true
nature of the Self in Time. Within this true nature of the Self is
implacable law, natural spiritual law. It is the law of the Self.
The Awakened Self discovers that it must surrender to the source and
essence of itself, that it must obey its own innermost truth. Every
straying from what lights up from the depths of authentic awareness is a
perversity, and in every straying from authentic Selfhood, there is the
separate self non-entity.
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