Experience and Awareness

The world, all things, time, space, everyone we know, in this present moment all this is experience to us.

There is no world, there is only ever experience. No one has ever seen a world that exists apart from experience. We could call all experience sense perceptions, thoughts and images. Through the thinking mind these sense perceptions are then given names and take on an apparent solid form.

Notice that what you experience, your sensations, thoughts and images, are changing every moment and cannot truly be described.

As soon as you spoke, your actual experience would be already different. You think you can describe your experience and in this idea there is a sense of I. In trying to describe your sensations, this activity appears to give the non-existent I a sense of control. What you are is open space which is aware of experience. This awareness is always present.

Whilst being this awareness, can you describe awareness? 

We have the capacity to objectify experience and it seems like there is an observer and something that is being observed. From this we can see that the sense of I is an activity. As soon as the activity ceases, like in deep sleep, there is no sense of I.

But you also know that during deep sleep, being remains.

When you truly experience the totality of the present moment, there is no possibility to objectify, hence no sense of I. Notice what happens if you would like to have a different experience from the experience you are having. Is it possible at all?

If the thought that it is possible to have a different experience to what you are having right now, is entertained, then it looks as if I can do something about it and I can change what is happening right now, I am in control.

As soon as you do not want the experience you are having, the not wanting it is also an experience and adds another layer on top of the entirety of experience.

This inevitably  leads to a sense of contraction. In most cases we are never consciously aware of this contraction, but somehow we feel that it might protect us. But we also feel a resistance to this contraction, which then locks it even further in.

We can be absolutely certain about experience and say that it is always changing. When we don’t want the experience we are having, we are trying to fix it, to objectify it, because we can’t get rid of something that is always changing. So in order to get rid of an experience or change it, we have to make it into something that seems to be fixed. 

This the human drama; actively resisting and not wanting the present experience and needing to change what is.

Not wanting the experience we are having, feels uncomfortable, the body registers this and tries to adapt. The mind tries to solve the seeming problems by projecting the problem and the imagined solution onto a screen we call the world. The mind now believes that by projecting it, it has gotten rid of it.

When we don’t want the experience we are having through this sense of resisting, all that happens is that our experience gets more intense, we feel even worse.

Now that it is worse we don’t want that either, so we resist again, which makes it worse again and now that it is worse again we don’t want that either, so we resist, a seemingly endless circle.

In a matter of moments we feel out of control, yet the experience we don’t want in the first place is still there and we feel utterly overwhelmed. Sadly most people live their entire lives this way.

There is a constant underlying feeling of stress and struggle just to survive.
 
Everything we never want to experience again and everything we think we want to experience, in other words our shadows and desires, we could call the subconscious mind. All of this represents the resistance to our present moment experience and our mistaken belief that it will bring us peace and happiness.

Simply become aware of resisting the experience you are having.

Pay attention to this moment, to simply being. Welcome all experiences. You could call this unconditional love or non-judgement. It is never the experience we are having that troubles us, it is whether or not there is an automatic habit of trying to not have the experience we are already having that troubles us.

May these impulses reach you and awaken you. I am here to support you! 

With Love + Respect 

Rolf Krahnert
Phone +61 416 620 118
http://rolfkrahnert.com
ConsciousLiving Foundation