I had the basic concepts of most seekers on Oneness, Consciousness, Absolute, Awareness and thought I was moving along the Path, slowly but starting to get it. Now I realize that the ideas that formed those concepts of reality are outdated and a new paradigm has begun which is turning everything upside down and creating a shift in perception.
My old paradigm was…I’m here inside this body and the world and others are out there. I accepted that because my belief was that the me inside was a fragment of the Absolute/Awareness/Consciousness and was safely contained in my body/mind and would show up now and then just to remind me where I came from. My search was to find ways to call up that contained Awareness on demand because that was where happiness and peace resided….and that wonderful thing called enlightenment.
The new paradigm (which is still in progress) is …who I am is not contained inside this body/mind. Sounds like a simple statement and I have said that for years but still held the feeling of being a separate fragment or person. In order to accept this new paradigm as Truth, more investigation into what I am “not” is needed…mainly not this person that seems to be contained in this body/mind. Just that simple investigation can turn everything upside down. Better still is rolling around the notion that objects only “seem” to exist outside of awareness and that the observed and observer are one and the same. My mind would like to make sense of that one but probably doesn’t have the capability and keeps trying to figure it out anyway….meanwhile my idea of reality is turning upside down.
This song started playing in my mind a few days ago as if I were singing it to the Absolute itself so I found the lyrics to “Upside Down, You’re Turnin’ Me” which sums up my feelings at this point.
The Retired Seeker 
You’ve got my mind to thinkin’. I suspect that I, deep down, still see myself as being “contained,” yet knowing that I am not, and yet unable to grasp the expansiveness of it all. I’ll be chewing on this for a while! Namaste . . .
Exactly! I “know” better but still have the feeling of being contained and separate most of the time. I need to chew on it also. 🙂 Thanks!
Great post. Interesting that we are on the same track. There is a point where the soul meets the body. This is where we reside.
Thanks for reading and commenting. I like that there’s a point where soul and body meetup.
I see my mind as very limited, but I have no idea yet whether there is a self, and how this self would or would not be limited in space or time.
I have the impression that there is no self, leaving the question of what I am basically unanswered. Still in the cloud of unknowing.
I have grown accustomed to the cloud of unknowing. As I look at my “knowings”, I had to downgrade most to beliefs and then let them go and return to the cloud of unknowing…there’s a crowd in the cloud. 🙂
good to know there are a lot of friends over there — the cloud prevents any vision … 🙂
Great post! I love the song – it’s perfect for this. When I’ve been in one of these places, I’ve had the image of being a purse or bag full of stuff, and I’ve been opened, turned upside down, and everything’s poured out, laying every which way on the floor. And there’s no way of having everything go back in the purse/bag in the same way. Thrilling and disconcerting!
Thanks for the comment. I like the image of a bag of stuff being emptied…and can never be replaced exactly the same way again. Thanks for reading….