You can never really be yourself unless you are completely free of the story that the mind keeps spinning about who you are. True expression of consciousness, in the form of this body, can only flower through in the absence of limitations created by the story in the mind. When consciousness is trapped in the story it’s lost in a dream, an illusion that has no root in reality. Like all dreams, as long as you don’t wake up, the dream is felt to be real, but when you do wake up the dream loses its hold.
Only the light of consciousness can dissolve the story
There is a phase when you are completely unconscious of who you are, and identified completely with the story of the mind. In this phase, your consciousness is completely trapped in the dream state. Most people live through the whole lifetime in this phase. Even after death of the body, the energy of the story lives on and takes a different form of expression – another incarnation.
You start seeing through the story of the mind when you realize that it’s nothing more than “just a story”. The energy of the story could well have been carried from your past life time, or from several past life times. When you see the story, you can see that it has a past which can almost be sensed to have lasted beyond this lifetime.
One has to be very conscious and still in order to see the story in operation, or else it’s quite easy to get sucked into the magnetic pull of the mind. Just observe how the mind keeps the story alive through constant thoughts about it. The central character of the story is the “me” which has no real existence beyond the story itself. The story starts dissolving in the light of pure consciousness; it cannot keep the consciousness in trance once it’s seen for what it is.
Life after awakening from the story
Till you wake up from the story you can’t really express your true nature fully. The physical body and the formless consciousness are two aspects of your expression, and only after becoming free of the story can both these aspects really merge together to create a harmonious expression. The story attracts a reality onto itself and keeps strengthening itself by “reaffirming” its content through the reality that it creates. It’s difficult to escape the pull of the story unless one becomes deeply conscious.
A lot of fear might arise in the mind as the story starts dissolving. This is natural because the mind feels that something “familiar” is leaving the space of consciousness. Don’t fear this fear, just allow it to be, and continue staying as the observing presence. The more conscious you become the less you will be pulled in by the mind, and the faster the story will dissolve.
It’s not possible to know what your life will be like after the story dissolves, but one thing is for sure that it will be conflict free and harmonious, with a deep feeling of joy. Your natural expression will unfold freely and it will feel as if life is carrying you through with effortless ease.
I have a few questions regarding reincarnation although I think the focus of this article was not intended to be on that as much. My question is if the ego is false and has no real existence (it derives its identity from the story) then what is it that reincarnates from one lifetime to another. Can you please help explain what you mean by the energy of the story lives on and takes a different form of expression. Also, I believe there is a difference (atleast to whatever extent I can understand) regarding the Hindu and Buddhists concept of reincarnation. Hinuds I guess believe there is a reincarnating entity that goes from one birth to another. I think in other words they put it as the individual soul takes on new forms (body and mind) based on the imprints of its actions, desires, thoughts, etc from previous lifetimes that are present in the soul. Buddhists on the other hand, i believe say that there are different karmic streams and a set of karmas from the karmic stream manifest as a particular body/mind organism at a particular point in time. After the death of the body/mind organism, there is no entity that survives but the karmic stream continues and manifests new body/mind organism at a different point in time. Buddhists believe there is only one universal consciousness. Hindus believe that there are individual Souls (consciousness) that are ulitmately part of the one universal Soul (consicousness) although even some Hindu schools of thought like Advaita are similar to Buddhists thought with regard to Universal consciousness and reincarnation
I could have got a lot of cocnepts wrong here. Any error is soley due to my lack of proper understanding of these concepts.
There is just one space of conscious “energy” and there are no boundaries in this space, this conscious energy is referred to as the universal being, one consciousness, universal consciousness, Brahman, Buddha nature, God, spirit etc in various spiritual teachings. Though there is just one body of energy, different parts of this body are focused on different realities – much like a human body has billions of cells, and each cell is a focused conscious energy but there are all part of the same body. So a part of this energy/consciousness is focused on the creation of our solar system and a subset of this part is focused on the creation of planet earth, a subset of the “earth consciousness” is focused as “human consciousness” to which we as humans belong – you can imagine the “hierarchy” of how the wider consciousness keeps becoming more and more focused into smaller realities. All humans stems from the intentions in this “human consciousness” which is a part of the universal consciousness. Each human body is connected to the entire human consciousness and universal consciousness in a manner of hierarchy. Of course, there is no such “thing” as a human body, because actually it’s just “cells” accumulated to give a shape – so there is no such thing as a “solid body” but just cells accumulated to give the “perception” of a body. If you keep going deeper into a cell you will reach “energy” vibrating, all matter is just energy vibrating – that’s why buddha said all forms are empty, because he recognized this simple truth.
Within human consciousness, there are various “streams” of consciousness focused on various “clusters” of humanity. There is no such thing as an “individual soul” allocated to a body, because there is “no body”, there are just cells – so if you are talking about individual souls you would need to allocate a soul to each cell. However, each body come forth from the intention of a stream of consciousness – in fact, it’s very possible that 10 or 15 human bodies get created under the intention of “one stream” of consciousness which has an certain intentionality. When I say the energy of the story continues, it’s simply because energy is cannot be “destroyed” it can only take new forms – the energy of the story of the mind, or thoughts/desires in a mind, is also present in the stream of consciousness that created that mind and hence it continues into “new forms” through intentions created out of those stories or desires, even after the original mind dissolves. However, as I mentioned, one intention can result in several human bodies being born or rather one stream of consciousness can take several forms at the same time, it’s not localized to any one body (simply because there is no such things as one solid body in the first place). Physicists have also confirmed that there are no boundaries in this space, and that all forms are connected as one space – but each form is a creation of “intention” in a stream of consciousness.
You belong to the “human consciousness” and you will keep moving forward in this “focus”, and this intention, under new forms as this consciousness keeps evolving as humans evolve, but it’s just as true that you are also the universal consciousness in your core, there is no separation. The consciousness that was focused on dinosaurs moved forward into new forms based on its intention and took forms that looked very different from the original dinosaurs, the same way the consciousness that’s focus on human forms will continue forward in its movement into new forms – there is only a forward movement, no regression and no end to this movement.
I am kind of getting the idea you are trying to convey here. However, can you please clarify what you mean when you say “You belong to the “human consciousness” and you will keep moving forward in this…..” Whos is this “you”? Does this imply I am this stream of consciousness from the focus and intention of which this body/mind that I idnetify as “me” and possbily some other body/minds came forth?
Yes, you as the stream of consciousness whose intentionality brought forth the existence of your human body and likely few other bodies, will continue moving forward in this focus. This stream of consciousness is a subset of the consciousness focused on human species as a whole, and of course it’s connected to the universal consciousness in a hierarchy of focus. Though I use the word “connected”, it’s just pointer to allow the imagination of the hierarchy of focus, in truth it’s just one big body of conscious energy – the one being in different focuses. It’s also important to realize that the “brain” of this body uses the term “me” to refer to itself, the brain references itself as “I” or “me” – which is what many spiritual teachings call the “Ego” self which is nothing but the sense of self created by the human brain to refer to itself. The ego structure serves a very practical purpose for the brain to have a “meaningful” experience of life, but when the brain is not aware of its “source”, of its connection with the whole, it feels isolated and totally identified with its own ego structure.
Thank You Sen!
Dear Sen,
I have a question concerning release of
energy when it leaves the mind of a human
who was not able to awake from the story
of the mind. If I understand correctly, you say
the story of the mind can continue into new
intentions after the death of the physical body
as the energy which was trapped in an unaware
mind.
But isn’t who we are pure positive by nature?
If the story of the mind was one of pure suffering,
surely the energy, when released from being trapped
in the body returns to its nature which is pure positive?
So how can the story live on after death when our nature
doesn’t know negativity to begin with ?
Can you please clarify?
Pavlo, it’s similar to what you feel when you wake up from a dream, in the morning. When you are dreaming, you take yourself to be the dream character and you take the dream to be reality, and then when you wake up you realize your current reality and know who you really are, and from this perspective your dream just feels like a “dream” it doesn’t feel too serious though you remember the story of the dream. Even if it was a nightmare, when we wake up we feel relieved and we tend to laugh at the dream, because we realize the dream character is not who we really are – hence it’s no longer serious.
Something similar is what you experience when your consciousness is no longer associated with this physicality, you realize your wholeness (your truth as non-physical consciousness) and in this wholeness the story of your physicality is no longer “serious”, however the story does give you a perspective to move forward.
Thank you very much Sen!
Hello Sen, not too long before mother passed away she broke down and was constantly crying and in fear. She told me that she felt the blindfold removed from her eyes and for the first time she could see what actually happened in her life, and she felt heartbroken. I told her at the time not to judge herself and torture herself with the past but she said she just couldn’t, that it was just too much and too late. She fell with a terminal illness around that time and died shortly afterwards. Mother lived a hard life mainly from ego and so upon waking from her story she felt it was over for her. I feel as though it was too much for her to handle and that she willed herself to fall ill and die. Is that possible? What happens to her story/soul after death? Is it energy that has the potential to re-incarnate into another body? Would it be mother’s choice to incarnate her story or it is no longer mother at this point and just pure energy potential?
Waking up from a past story (or way of living) and feeling guilty about it is just a continuation of negativity in a new form, there is no real shift in thinking. Guilt and repentance are just new forms of negativity that the mind takes on, possibly in the garb of feeling noble. Once you die, you have a full realization of your wholeness, or your truth as the stream of consciousness, and the source of resistance which was the “mind” is no longer around and hence there is no resistance either – there is only a “perspective” (no negativity) and how this stream consciousness moves forward with this perspective depends on what it chooses to focus on.
No, there was no shift in thinking. She lived as a ‘victim’ in her mind and she passed away repeating that no one loves her. Is there any step that can be taken to influence this consciousness?
Alchemista, at the moment of death there is a complete release of the resistance created by the mind (because the mind is dead) and what remains is the awareness of the non-physical stream of consciousness that was focused on the body, the perspective in this place is completely different from the perspective held by the mind – it’s like the difference in perspective when you are asleep and dreaming a dream, possibly a nightmare (believing yourself to be the dream character) and waking up from sleep, realizing that it was just a dream – you are no longer afraid the way you were when you were dreaming and took yourself to be the dream character. You remember the story of the dream but you don’t have the same perspective as what you had when you were asleep, you now know who you really are and hence you are no longer holding on to the negativity of the dream state. You can read the post – what happens after death, for more insight on this.
Thank you do much for your reply Sen. I understand it much better now. I still have a question though about your comment here “how this stream consciousness moves forward with this perspective depends on what it chooses to focus on.” I’m not clear about what is there to choose to focus on…
Hi Sen, have you removed the post referred to above “what happens after death”? Is your perspective on this topic anywhere else in the blog?
I’m a bit confused as to how we can carry resistances, pain etc into a new form. I thought one of the advantages of self-realisation is that you would not carry forward these types of dysfunctions. However, you appear to be saying, that at point of death it’s like waking up from a dream. So what difference does it make then if we reach self-realisation (apart from having a better qualityof life for a few years)? Would an early death free one just as quickly?
I know we can say absolutely what happens when we die but I’d really like to hear your opinion.
Thank you very much for this blog!
Faith, as a “being” we carry the understandings, the growth and the perspectives, the balance or imbalances, that we come to in our physical journey, as a part of our evolution as a being. There is such as a thing as an unconscious being (a being/soul lost in delusion) and conscious beings (sometimes called evolved beings/souls, with is not the right term because all beings are on the path of evolution all the time). Of course this is a perspective that resonates with me, which I sense as being true, I wouldn’t mind if this was not the case either. I talk about this perspective in the below posts
http://www.calmdownmind.com/an-individual-journey/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/a-non-physical-perspective/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/a-lesson-in-humility/