When someone goes somewhere to do something

These questions are from a friend who is curious about my experience. She wishes to remain anonymous.

QUESTION: Can you expound on this shift in consciousness you went through?

There is no shift in my consciousness. It remains the same. It’s like this. Put your finger up to your eye. You can only see so much. The ‘shift’ is moving that finger further away so you see more. Your field of vision has not changed. There is nothing extra. The finger which was blocking your eye has just shifted further away. You still have a finger, but there is more space around it. The finger is the belief that you are someone who needs to go somewhere to do something to achieve enlightenment at some time in the future.

Eventually, the finger can be so far away that it disappears. I think this is the experience of Swami Premananda, Ramana Maharshi and Anandamaya Ma. I don’t say this to define them but to point you in that direction. 

On the Ashram, Paul Donaldson shattered into pieces. Poof! Gone. Yet I remained. The shattered fragments reconstituted themselves, but the illusion had been broken. There is a good book called Perfect, Brilliant, Stillness, where the author describes his experience in the jungle. I remember him using a description saying the fan is turning, but the power has been cut. Paul is like that. The movement is residual.

(L-R) Swami Premananda, Lesley Capucho-Paulo and Paul Donaldson Copyright @1994

The journey to being complete and whole, which we describe as the spiritual path is witnessed by something Complete and Whole.

QUESTION: You avoided the words Self Realisation, even to the point of diminishing that concept as mind induced.

The mind cannot induce Self Realisation. What it can do is have someone think they are Self-Realised or enlightened or an awakened being or a Master of Wisdom and so on. If you think you’re enlightened, you’re not. If you believe I’m enlightened, I am, but only to you. That would then be your reality and not mine. I’d still just be this experience of this. The train of thought in which you reach a particular point of evolution and are therefore Self-Realised is an illusion. The individual may speak in those terms and address themselves as such, but this would only be to accommodate the preconception of those who expect this of a spiritual teacher. If the individual actually thought they were Self-Realised, this is the ego. I’m just what I am, which is nothing. A dad. Someone loving and loved. A particular note in this symphony of souls of which you are one yourself. Whatever. There is nobody to be Self-Realised in my case. Maybe I’m just so shallow that, for all intents and purposes, I’ve disappeared. You would need to look for yourself to know if this were true.

QUESTION: I wonder if this concept or way of viewing the definition of shifting consciousness vs Self Realisation or Enlightenment is of your own making, or was it taught to you by your teacher, whoever that is?

The definition of ‘shifting’ is personal to the individual, as is the meaning of realisation. The realisation is the loss of total identification with the individual, so the reality, as opposed to the definition, isn’t an individual experience. Jesus, Colonel Saunders, Elvis, and the Milkman are outwardly different, so their enlightenment would appear different. However, realising the self is realising you are One in the first instance and nothing in the second. This is said with the understanding that a strict definition of self-realisation is a mental construct, a hoop the mind or ego wishes you to jump through. The mind wants you to be doing when all you need is ‘being.’

Swami Premananda, as my teacher, did not teach me anything. I wasn’t interested in learning. I wanted to ‘know.’ I asked Swami Premananda who I was. Swami showed me just who was present to be taught.

There was nobody.

QUESTION: Are you in an Order or a member of a Religious Sect?

No. Orders and sects will instruct me how to get from where I am to where I am. In reality, or at least this one, there is no me to get anywhere. It’s laughably simple, so the possibility must be considered that my ‘perspective’ is simply laughable.

How would you know unless you know?

QUESTION: How and in what ways have you seen changes in your consciousness over the years?

None. It is what it always is. Consciousness does not change. It is the light by which all else is seen to change.

QUESTION: Have you continued to shift?

No. There is nowhere to shift to. There is only ‘being.’ This does not mean I have reached some ultimate state. It just means, as there is nobody to attain it, why should I be concerned?

QUESTION: Do you see any deepening of your understanding, enlightenment knowledge, or joyful bliss?

Yes. However, these are experiences but not the reality. They are experiences that flow through this consciousness. What was there before these experiences? Into whose presence do they come? What remains when they go?

QUESTION: I have read and heard that after initial enlightenment, there are stages of development that lead to one becoming a full-blown Jhani. Is this true?

The journey to being complete and whole, which we describe as the spiritual path, is witnessed by something Complete and Whole.

QUESTION: Have you grown?

Fatter. Yes.