Infinite Awareness Experiencing Itself
In new age philosophy there is a constant belief system that is continuously spread without question, and it has to do about us all being "one". The main component to this is that all identity is an illusion - and I strongly agree with this for the most part. What really surprises me about this is how blatantly people will contradict themselves while supporting this "We are the Borg. Individuality is futile" idea.
The God/Source is said to be infinite and all life is part of it, and is it. It learns from all the, probably, trillions of lives/experiences. Then people go on to say that all souls fragment away from the source so that we can "learn" and "evolve". This is where the major contradictions come in, people start to say "I" needed certain experiences, so "I" choose my family, and the hardships (suffering), so that "I" could learn from this. Eventually "we" (individuals) will ascend again back to the source where we lose all of our identities again. People will also talk about "their" past lives, which is another contradiction based on the premise "we are one consciousness experiencing itself".
It brings up a lot of questions but a few of them are: How can we have past lives if we are all one? Why does the source need to experience the same suffering and situations trillions of times with slight variations? Is the source seriously bored or sadistic? :P
What it seems to me is people are simply applying meaning to their suffering; they identify with it as a necessary part of life for everything experienced. It's a line of thinking where people start to think that one could never appreciate something without suffering. How could one enjoy food without hunger, freedom without slavery, etc? Similar to Stockholm syndrome: My master only beats me because I need it to grow.
When a person practices some sort of mindfulness or meditation practice they may experience an expanded awareness. It may be feeling a source of infinite energy in oneself, out of body experiences/astral travel, expanded perception of reality, feeling joy and happiness for no reason. And the truth of it is that we really don't need anything to be full, happy, or complete. It holds us back when we start to believe that I need x, y, and z to be this and that.
In conclusion, if we believe that we all are "the infinite source/god", and we believe that it is incomplete, lacking, not experienced enough, evolved/ascended enough, strong enough, or whatever... Then what can we think of ourselves? It seems like a life of perpetual "I'm not good enough".
I love the that people are writing about awareness in Steem..
This article is very heady, very mental.. This is NOT a complaint, just an observation. Thoughts are not a source of power, but the result of power. So, when you use thought to philosophize awareness it doesn't work out. Awareness is beyond thought. Realizations that really sink in, often thru meditation, happen outside of thought.
I'm not saying DON'T be mental in trying to logically rationalize Awareness. Instead, be ready, because at some point, the mind will tie itself into knots trying to understand what it cannot, and Awareness will finally give up on the mind (for that purpose) and come home to it's true self.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. In my article, I'm questioning the contradictory belief systems (thoughts) that some people have on this subject. Some of the people who preach "we are all one" are the ones who are trying to logically rationalize awareness. I don't have any solid belief system/belief trap about any of this, so I don't preach that. Especially, when the concept cannot be comprehended or explained. Not to say that people shouldn't share what they feel to be true. Some people actually do explain it in a way where they don't contradict themselves, and I respect that.
I think we both agree though that when things get too logical and mental it becomes less "aware" so to speak. Your analogy about the mind tying itself in knots is a very good one.
You again, I've run into you 3 times in my 3 days on Steem. I appreciate your posts as well.
The individualism we learn from society is egoism. True individuality goes hand in hand with recognizing the inter-connectivity of all things. Some call it God, I call it Love or sometimes the universe.
To call identity an illusion is not inaccurate, but it is our own creation and creation is what we are here to do in the first place. Most individuals fail to recognize that their identity is self-created, a piece of art, and that it is up to them what to do with it. Others somehow make the mistake of thinking that this deems life meaningless.
Suffering serves the purpose of showing us what we don't desire, not only as individuals but as a collective.
We are her to give meaning to the art that is life, but sometimes in doing so we get lost in the meaning that we give it and think that this meaning was there to begin with. "Good" and "Bad" are useful concepts, they are concepts that we are here to create. But they are defined by us, and sometimes it's useful to remember that to the infinite, there are no such concepts.
Nice post, I wonder where I can find more posts like this?
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