Most of us experience a false kind of unity. In everyday life we experience subject and object, and when it comes to who we are, we conflate – unite – subject and object. We believe we are the body, individual mind and emotions. We say “I am this flesh and blood, I am these thoughts, I am happy”. But we have forgotten the “I”. We have covered over the Consciousness that is the true Self and thus our unity is actually ignorance. Falsely, the “I” has become the body, the emotions and the thoughts, all the while pure Awareness, pure Being, pure Presence has been hidden. In this state, we live as the pain and pleasure of the body, the happiness and sadness of the emotions and the peace and chaos of the mind while everything else is seen as separate, different.
As we progress on the spiritual path, we begin to have a new experience of the “I”, a true experience of the subject. In this first stage of enlightenment, the true subject is now experienced. We experience and understand that we are not the body or the individual mind but are Consciousness that watches, observes, witnesses it all. This is only the first experience of enlightenment because it still divides the subject and object; Consciousness witnessing the object.
As our realization fully unfolds, we experience that the subject is the same as the object, that the “I”, the pure Consciousness, is the same as all objects. We move into a true experience of unity where we know the true Self, the subject, as Consciousness while also experiencing that the object is the same Consciousness. Subject and object are engulfed in the realization of unity. Our pure Awareness of Self recognizes that all objects are the same pure Awareness.
In this state of true unity, we experience that this universe is created by Consciousness, out of Consciousness, within Consciousness. The subject and object are both Consciousness and the differentiation that seemed real is only an appearance of Consciousness as a name, form and attribute within Consciousness that allows the play of Consciousness to exist. In true unity, we experience that the multiplicity that we once saw as separate subject and object is really one subject; Consciousness, our true Self. We experience that all energy, all movement, is shakti, the intelligent power of Consciousness. In true unity, the fear of differentiation dissolves into oneness and the pain of duality dissolves into the bliss of the Self.
Blessings,
