I am in a funny spot

“We have to become as simple and as wordless as the growing corn or the falling rain. We must just be.” — Etty Hillesum

I am in a funny spot, just like everyone else. I try to live my life but am distracted by so many things, some of which come from within, and some that come from without. My state goes up and down. My attention wanders and I start things that I don’t complete. I try again to achieve normal daily goals and, even when I “succeed,” I wonder why I am not happier than I would be otherwise.

My uneasiness and sense of who I am is in flux because my state is also in flux. Without a deeper understanding of my various and changing states of consciousness, and without a better understanding of what is possible, I am trapped in a cycle of pursuing worldly things - things that don’t return happiness, things that confuse me, things that produce a false sense of value, things that are false in so many senses of the word. Without self-remembering I am lost.

The trick of nature is that when you tell someone they are asleep, they suddenly find themselves more awake. Here is one of the great guises of our present state of consciousness. We cannot ordinarily see our correct position in the universe, because when we think on that larger scale, we suddenly have a much greater perspective on the universe. We neglect to remember the preceding sleepier, and less perceptive state.

Within us then, is this rarely tapped capacity for a higher state of consciousness: self-remembering or the third state, as it’s referred to in the Fourth Way. It’s a state of self-awareness, a state in which we have a cleaner and clearer understanding of our place in the greater surroundings. It’s simple. It’s quiet. It’s unpretentious. It lacks nefarious motivations. It brings a sense of detachment without being uninterested. This feeling of separation is like a pause button on a television in which the show is still there and running, but we’ve somehow stepped aside from it. We see ourselves watching the program.

This detachment allows the higher parts in us to emerge, and we receive the world unclouded. In many religions they talk about lifting the veil or clearing the fog of sleep. Unveiled, this is the state in which we see more deeply. We don’t judge the world. We feel love more genuinely and we want harmony. Such a realization of harmony and living in Presence is a higher state of consciousness. In this state, I don’t want to change anything externally. I don’t expect anything to be different. I accept and I love it as it is. I see the world more objectively, and a sense of curiosity and love permeates me – the observer – and its observations. I am as simple as “the growing corn or the falling rain.” I am . . . if I can only keep it.

Do you wonder about how you can encourage self-remembering in your daily life? Do you wonder whether it is possible to sustain this state of just being?

Lyons Kore (6th C BCE, Acropolis, Athens)

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