We Are Not Our Thoughts: Identity and a Life of Exploring Consciousness

We Are Not Our Thoughts: Identity and a Life of Exploring Consciousness

It’s been 20 years now since I had my first earth shattering consciousness-expanding experience, and 17 years since my second one. The first one was positive, but the second one scared the crap out of me.

In my experience 17 years ago, my ego identity/sense of self began to become uprooted, and quickly. I was doing intensive amounts of meditation. While on some level I was ready (intellectually for sure) to loosen the attachment I had to what I thought my identity was — an attachment we all have — I was not ready for it at that speed and to that depth.

When you feel like your identity is being uprooted, you feel like what you know of as “you” is dying. This is a massive shift to undertake. And if this is not done at the proper time/circumstance, it can lead to massive confusion and even potentially psychosis.

At some point I started experiencing intense fear and like I was “going too far,” so I retreated. I figuratively “packed up” and quickly fit myself back into the current identity box that I identify with in my everyday, normal awareness. Because the level of anxiety I was dealing with by the time I stopped meditating, rendered me nonfunctional. I couldn’t sleep or eat. I thought for sure I was on the brink of insanity.

No amount of spiritual/consciousness development mattered anymore. All that mattered was that I returned to “sanity” and properly dealt with my anxiety.

Ever since then I’ve been living in and interacting with my “identity box” while knowing that I’m more than that. We are more than that. We are so much more massive than we can comprehend, until we have experienced it in some form, whether it be through drugs, meditation, near death experiences, or some spontaneous experience.

Just recently, I’ve felt little nudges around me reminding me in a sense that maybe it’s time to remember. To remember what it felt to be more massive. That I am not this body. I am not my thoughts. And to really remember the gift I received of something so important and not commonly understood. The gift of meeting my “higher self” at the young age of 18, when I didn’t even know what any of that meant. I know things now I never thought could be possible, and when I experienced them it simply felt like remembering something I had forgotten.

But I’ve not been directly living in that reality, all due to my body’s overactive fight or flight response. Our egos are designed to keep us grounded and engaged in this human reality. It’s a survival mechanism. But we are not just our egos.

I’m reminded just how much I’ve brushed aside all that I experienced, all for trying to “survive.” And it reminded me what incredible insight you gain when you can explore higher consciousness in a safe way.

While I don’t intend on rushing back into meditation in the way I did in the past, maybe little by little I can embrace my own true nature behind it all once again.

The Chandogya Upanishad: A Lesson On Our True Natures

The Chandogya Upanishad: A Lesson On Our True Natures

The Chandogya Upanishad tells as story about Svetaketu, a young man of ancient India who, on returning to his home after twelve years of studying the Vedas, appeared to his father to be as somewhat set up about his vast learning. The father therefore set out to teach him some homely but profound wisdom not necessarily learned from books.

“Bring me,” he said to his son, “a fruit from a banyan tree.”
“Here is one, sir.”
“Break it.”
“It is broken, sir.”
“What do you see there?”
“Some seeds, sir, exceedingly small.”
“Break one of these.”
“It is broken, sir.”
“What do you see there?”
“Nothing at all.”
The father said, “My son, that subtle essence which you do not perceive there – in that very essence stands the being of the great banyan tree. In that which is the subtle essence all that exists has its self. That is the true, that is the Self, and you, Svetakeu, are that.”
“Pray, sir,” said the son. “Tell me more.”
For the second lesson the father gave his son a bag of salt, saying, “Place this salt in a vessel of water and come to me tomorrow morning with the vessel.”
When the son appeared the next day the father commanded, “Bring me the salt which you put in the water.”
But the salt of course had disappeared.
“Taste the water from the surface of the vessel and tell me how it is.”
“Salty,” said the son.
“And from the middle?”
“Salty.”
“And from the bottom?”
“Salty also.”
Then the father said, “Here likewise in this body of yours, my son, you do not perceive the true, but there in fact it is. In that which is the subtle essence, all that exists has its self. That is the true, that is the Self; and you, Svetaketu, are that.”

-Changdogya Upanishad

Aligning Ourselves with the Only Constant: Change

Aligning Ourselves with the Only Constant: Change

When I was younger and a good thing happened in my life, I was always full of wishes for it to last forever. I’d say to myself “please PLEASE let me have this person in my life forever!!!” or what have you I’d plead and beg to myself that things wouldn’t change and that it was something I could keep, in its exact state, as it was in that moment. I’m sure most of those of you reading this can relate.

It’s like that first love you had that was unlike anything you had ever experienced and allowed you to experience a whole new range of emotions and maybe made you feel a little more grown up, like you could say you finally knew what this “love” thing was all about.

It might’ve helped you form your identity by having this new experience with another human being and made you feel more important, because you were getting extra validation of your actions and your existence with this close relationship, and through each other you begin to meet new people who see you not just as an individual but a unit.

But as I have gotten older, the passage of time has told me the necessity of change. However, it has also shown me how resistant some of us still are to it. Even as we age, most of us have a plethora of external circumstances that continue to validate our actions. We learn to look to external sources be it people, structures and systems such as school, accomplishments, careers, and what have you as tools to measure our existence by.

It’s hard to ignore, because it happens by habit and by growing up in a society with structured systems that each of us plays a part in. Everything becomes a matter of relativity to something else; we’re making less money than someone else, we’re a different color than someone else, we didn’t accomplish a certain number of degrees compared to someone else, and thus the list goes on forever…and in even more subtler ways we might not immediately recognize.

We might be in and out of relationships that put us in different life situations where we have varying social statuses or introduce us to situations that are new and we discover new dimensions to add to what we understand as our identity.

Sometimes we notice how other people (or groups of people) react to us as a person and use that to understand ourselves or our placement in this world. Our identity really ends up becoming the sum of comparisons against something else, or a sum of the reflection of others’ opinions. And sometimes, we forget to learn how to look beyond all of it to reveal the source.

It might sound in words more simple than it is, but it is really complex, because from the time we were born, we have been introduced to life on earth and society as it is in this current state. We learn to understand ourselves only in the context of the current state of our world. If we don’t naturally explore other ideas frequently in our minds, learning to uncover our core can be a major undertaking.

These days, I use meditation and frequent contemplation to discover what deeply rooted perceptions I might have that were built from the time I was a kid or during days where I didn’t know better. I try to observe my day-to-day emotions and actions and see where they might be stemming from, or what is provoking them.

In my opinion, there is nothing more valuable than the evolution of the self. Relationships of all kinds, achievements and the like are important, but if they are becoming a hindrance to your potential, this is likely an issue or will become one. Healthy relationships and circumstances should be helping you to propel you forward, or should at least be supportive as you reach new heights in your understanding of your self.

And without change, we would suffer. We’d never grow, be pushed out of our comfort zone, and come to understand the world in new ways. We’d never reach new heights of happiness or release the chains of our mind that might be holding us back.

If change comes knocking at your door, open it with welcome arms and remind yourself that it might be the opportunity of a lifetime, even if it’s disguised behind a veil.

“I do not accept any absolute formulas for living. No preconceived code can see ahead to everything that can happen in a person’s life. As we live, we grow and our beliefs change. They must change. So I think we should live with this constant discovery. We should be open to this adventure in heightened awareness of living. We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience.”
Martin Buber

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