Pure Consciousness Emerging

            When the shift in consciousness (The Break) happened here in 2018, anything that could be called “I” or “me” (ego) fell away. The Holy Spirit as constant companion was gone as well, because there was no longer anything here to connect with the Holy Spirit. However, it was not totally lost. What once was called the Holy Spirit no longer felt beside but surrounding. It had become the context—the space, the field, the “world”—in which everything was occurring.

This was one of many experiences at the time that was baffling, largely because it did not fit expectations. But experiences that I could not understand for a few years are now coming together. (The experience of that time can be found in a memoir). The presence of ego in consciousness seems to block part of consciousness from itself, what we experience as conscious awareness—what is immediately in our awareness. This blocking seems to make an unconscious. So, truth, which is pure consciousness, or consciousness without ego, is here but conscious awareness is unconscious to it. When pure consciousness pushes up from the unconscious toward conscious awareness, it results in what we think of as spiritual experiences—insights, mystical experiences, shifts, and, perhaps finally, a shift that brings pure consciousness to conscious awareness permanently, bumping ego out as the center of conscious awareness.

The latter is what happened at The Shift here and the result was that ego was revealed to be not an alternate reality to reality (pure consciousness) but only an appearance occurring in reality (pure consciousness). The initial experience felt like there was something huge looming over Liz (written as The Hugeness in the memoir.) This was an almost physical sensation. Liz was tempted to walk around ducking her head whenever this sensation arose. This is how much ego distorts conscious awareness. The rest of consciousness that conscious awareness is part of felt like a massive presence.

This experience of Hugeness subsided but only now do I realize that what followed was really the same experience. It was a sense of a new, greater context around everything that was recognized to be what used to feel beside, what had been called the Holy Spirit. And as ego has subsided more, it became understood here that ego was only something appearing in consciousness. This fact had never been in conscious awareness before.

“The good” I wrote about a few weeks ago is pure consciousness, the “space” or “field” in which appearances appear and disappear. Unlike other appearances—the material world, thoughts, feelings, experiences—which simply appear and are neutral, ego tells stories about and gives meaning to itself and other appearances. It is “special” in that way, but this does not make it any less merely an appearance like other appearances. Without ego here to be attached to them, giving them meaning and making stories out of them, appearances merely pass. For example, sometimes clients will say, “Liz, you just shared something upset you, how can you be enlightened?” Be clear on this: No person is enlightened. The Enlightened Mind is here in consciousness—it is consciousness. But that is not Liz. Liz is only an appearance in consciousness. Her thoughts, feelings, and opinions are only appearances, too. What is different for Liz now is those things pass without attachment, judgment, or resistance. Never look to a person to understand enlightenment. All appearances are illusions. You can only understand enlightenment from enlightenment—pure consciousness. That can rise to your conscious awareness, but it does not become material form.

Conscious awareness is never lost to the rest of consciousness; it is merely covered by ego and its elaborate world like a blanket so it cannot see the whole of consciousness. If ego moves out of the way, conscious awareness is revealed to be, and to have always been, consciousness. Conscious awareness is not a self or an “I” or an identity. Ego “carved” it out of consciousness as though it was. But it is what is as consciousness is what is.

Back in the day, I sensed all this and applied the Christian symbols of A Course in Miracles (God, Christ, Holy Spirit) to what I now call the absolute, consciousness, and conscious awareness, but those words have lofty connotations that I find unnecessary and ego-made for what is distant, foreign, and lofty to ego. What is, is quite ordinary and does not need special labels like holy, divine, or sacred. If truth (pure consciousness) is not in your conscious awareness, it is just outside it. Conscious awareness is not lost to the rest of consciousness. It has not come to think it is something else (ego). Ego covers it over but has no effect on it; ego does not change it. Conscious awareness is always consciousness. It does not need a journey to learn this, but a spiritual journey for ego is likely to show up when pure consciousness rises from the unconscious and pushes away the cover that is ego to reveal that conscious awareness has never left pure consciousness. This may happen briefly or in episodes. If it happens fully, ego’s journey ends. The timing of these movements is not a choice, but an unfolding. And when they happen, it is understood that the only thing in consciousness is consciousness. Appearances are illusions.

 

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