Sophia in the Universe

This morning I found quite a penetrating letter written by Ken Wilber. I read it, and afterwards I closed my eyes and imagined in my mind that my consciousness is not just limited to the confines of my physical body. I envisioned that I was expanded, first as big as the room and then the nearby outdoors. I imagined I was also the mountains, and the roads, and all the people that were sitting close by. This is only a small sample of what the vastness of this really is. It is so far-reaching, limitless, infinite, that the universe itself is contained within it.

Mentally, I am imagining this. I can picture it, and can understand it intellectually. I believe it. The only thing that's keeping me back now is an experience of profound realization. I am waiting.

After having read this letter, I have decided that I will have to examine this Ken Wilber guy more closely. Before today, he was just a name to me, a name of a man that some regard as a spiritual teacher, and a man who has written books. That is all I know of him, before this.

Here you may read the letter yourself. Just copy and paste the words into a Word document, and on the menu, go to "edit", select "find" and replace all instances of "Sophia" with your name. If you have troubles doing this, send me an e-mail and I'll help you with it.

Ken Wilber • From You to Infinity in 3 Pages

What I am going to do in the following is simply "describe" the nondual Self right now as it is immediately seen. The following is stream of consciousness, so forgive any goofs. Simply relax your mind and read the following easily (if a sentence immediately makes sense, fine, if not, just keep lightly reading):

What you have been seeking is literally and exactly That which is reading this page right now. That Self cannot be found because it was never lost: you have always known you were you. That I AMness is a constant condition of all that arises, is the space in which it all arises, has nothing outside of it and thus is complete Peace, and radiates its own beauty in all directions. Sophia arises in the space of that I AMness, Sophia arises in this vast spaciousness, this pure openness. Sophia is an object, just like a tree or a cloud that arises in the space of the Self that you are. I am not talking to Sophia right now, I am talking to you. That which is aware of Sophia is this ever-present Self. This Self is aware of Sophia arising right now. This Self is God. God is reading this page. Sophia is not reading this page, God is reading this page. The Self is aware of Sophia and aware of this page. You are not Sophia. You are what is aware of Sophia. What is aware of Sophia is an I AMness that itself cannot be seen but only felt, felt as an absolute certainty, unshakeable is-ness, I AM that I AM eternally, timelessly, unendingly. There is only this I AMness in all directions. Everything arises spontaneously in the space of this great perfection that is the Self, which is reading this page right now.

And you, Sophia, are that Self. You have always known that you are this Self. There was never a time that you did not know that you are you. You can never remember a time when you were not you. The only thing you can ever remember is something that this Self did. There is only this Self. You cannot reach out for it because it is that which is doing the reaching. You cannot see it because it is doing the seeing right now, which means, everything simply arises in its awareness: the entire world arises in your awareness right now. You are that space in which it is all spontaneously and effortlessly arising. You are that One. You have always been that One. There is only that One. Do not pretend you are finding that One. Do not pretend you have forgotten that One. The only thing you have ever known, the only thing you can ever remember, the only thing you are actually feeling right now is that One: the is-ness, now-ness, suchness of everything, just as it is, and as it is arising within your Self—the simple feeling of Being, which is all you ever feel always.

Look at the clouds: they are arising in your awareness: they are arising in you. The clouds are outside of Sophia but inside of your Self. Look at your body and this room. Your body is in this room, but both the body and the room arise IN your awareness. You are literally holding them in your consciousness lovingly. The mountains are arising in your awareness: they are arising in you, and you are lovingly holding the mountains within your consciousness, holding the arising world within your embrace as the dearly radiant beloved. The mountains are arising outside of Sophia but inside of your Self. The clouds, the mountains, and Sophia are all simultaneously and effortlessly arising in this Self, the reader of this page. All that is arising is arising in this unshakeable I AMness, which is not a thing or an object or a person, but the openness or clearing in which all things and all objects and all persons are arising. This emptiness, this openness, this vast spaciousness is your Self, is what you have always been, is what you are before your parents were born, is what you are before the Big Bang happened. Before Abraham was, I AM. There is no before and no after for this now-ness that is the Self. There is only this now-ness of the Self that is reading this page in this very moment. There is no past and no future in this never-ending now. All befores and all afters arise in this awareness. There is only this ever-present, never-starting, never-ending, unborn, undying, radiant beauty that is aware of this page, that is aware of this universe, and that finds all of them IN the space that it is, and therefore all things arise in the unshakeable Peace that holds them all easily in its caring within. Sophia is in the universe; the universe is in your Self.

Therefore, be this ever-present Self who is reading this page. I am not talking to Sophia, I am talking to you. Let Sophia arise and fall like all objects. Let Sophia come into being, remain a bit, and pass: what has this to do with your Self? All objects arise, remain, and pass in the spaciousness and emptiness that is aware of this moment, and this moment, and this moment, and this moment. Yet this moment has no end, you have never actually felt the present come to an end because it never does: it is the only thing that is real: this now-ness, this simple feeling of being, the very same feeling-awareness in which this page floats, and in which Sophia floats, and in which the clouds float. When you feel this present now-ness, there is nothing outside of it—you cannot see on the outside of this timeless now because there is nothing outside of it. Now and now and now is all you ever know, and this now-ness is simply another name for the spacious Self in which the entire kosmos arises as a radiant, joyful, ecstatic swoon of bliss and a desire to share this infinite Joy with somebody else.

Because this page and the mountains and the clouds all arise in your awareness, there is nothing outside your Self. That there is literally nothing outside your Self means there is literally nothing that can threaten it. Since you know this Self, you know Peace. Because you are already, directly, immediately, and intimately one and identical with That which is reading this page right now, you know God right now, directly and immediately and unmistakably and undeniably. And because you know God right now, as the very Self reading this page, you know you are finally, truly, deeply home, a home that you have always directly known and always pretended you didn't.

Therefore, pretend no more. Confess that you are God. Confess that you are Beauty. Confess that you are the very Truth the sages have sought for centuries. Confess that you are Peace beyond understanding. Confess that you are so ecstatically happy that you had to manifest this entire world just to bear witness to a radiant beauty you could no longer contain only in and for yourself. Confess that the Witness of this page, the Self of this and all the worlds, is the one and only true Spirit that looks through all eyes and hears with all ears and reaches out in love and compassion to embrace the very beings that it created itself in an eternal ecstatic dance that is the secret of all secrets. And confess that you are Alone, that you are literally the only One in the entire universe: there are no others to this One. There are indeed others to Sophia, but both Sophia and the others arise in the awareness that is reading this page, and this awareness, this Self, has no other because all others arise in it. One without a second is what is reading this page.

Therefore, be that One. And also give my love to Sophia.

Ken

p.s. Do you realize, deeply, deeply, deeply, that the one who is reading this page is the one who wrote it, yes? Sophia, and Ken, and this page, all arise in the Witness of this page, yes? The Self is not hard to find, but impossible to escape. So drop all this fuss about finding and losing, and simply be the One in whom all worlds are now arising. So go outside and look at the beautiful world arising within your very own feeling-awareness, arising within your very own Being, and then, you know, go have a beer or something....

Spiritual Autolysis Journal 9/26/07

I've still got more of _Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment_ to complete, so writing this journal entry might be premature, but I wanted to say a few things while I'm thinking about the spiritual autolysis process.

The difficulty I was having is that I simply did not know how to begin. I know, where better to begin than the very beginning?

I wonder, though, how can one become enlightened just by writing things down in a journal? Maybe he just meant that it is only a step towards enlightenment. If so, will he give us the rest of the steps?

I was reading about Richard Rose's realization experience yesterday, as it was recommended to me by J. Some have theorized that Richard Rose is Jed McKenna. I do not think this is possible. Jed's books started to be published in 2003 and 2004. Rose, at that point, already had alzheimer's disease, and had already been in the nursing home since 1997. Also, Jed states in his first book, briefly, that he is 40 years old. In 2003 and 2004, Rose was already 86 or 87. And I don't think Rose would be jumping out of airplanes at that advanced age! In any case, Rose died in 2005, and I have a strange feeling that Jed is out there this very moment, pretending to be Jed.

All this that I have just typed above is my ego struggling. I was meaning to start my spiritual autolysis journal. As you have no doubt noticed, I got distracted by another subject and became side-tracked.

So, what do I know to be true? I can only start by speaking about the things that I once thought true. I am unsure about the truth of many of these things, now. I thought I was a human, disconnected from the rest of the world and alone. Now I believe that my human-ness is really just a hologram, or a shell for my ego. It's like everything that was once held within my skin has disappeared, and now the empty loose skin is laying piled on the floor. Only, there really isn't even any skin. There is nothing. Also, I do not any longer believe that I am disconnected from the rest of the world, nor that I am alone. I've thought about Oneness since I took my religions of the east course in college back in the fall of 2001. It started with Buddhism and Hinduism. From that point, I was hooked. My professor planted the seed, and that seed began to grow like a vine. I went from simply taking a course to fulfill my elective requirements to being consumed by the need to become enlightened or to know truth. When I learned about the Buddhists' beliefs and the Hindus' beliefs, I felt in my heart that everything was really One. I remember sitting in the classroom, and looking at the other students I thought to myself, "Wow, this is awesome. All these people are really parts of myself."

Since that course, I've delved into many philosophical and spiritual topics, going from one phase to the next, trying to find what felt right to me. I went into the New Age, and also started trying to practice mysticism or to have mystical experiences, like astral projection and out-of-body experiences. In other words, I got off-track as usual. Don't get me wrong, I'd really like to experience these and many other mystical things, but I want to bring my focus to enlightenment, first. Once enlightened, I want to play around. Truth be told, I hope that the playing becomes easier once one is enlightened, because it certainly is not easy for me to project astrally.

Argh... there I go again, rambling, trying to avoid the task at hand. Perhaps a good place for me to start would be to state the things that I know are not true? Just to get them out of the way, sweep them under the rug for now, maybe examine further in the future. Well, for one, I am not an insect. Now THAT I know to be true. What else? I am not the clothes that I wear. I am not my mother or father. I am not my job.

And right now, this moment, what seems to be true? I am sitting in a chair; I can feel it beneath my bum, I can feel my feet upon the legs. I am typing this on a computer; I can feel the keyboard beneath my fingertips, and can see the screen in front of me, the cursor moving from left to right as the words appear. I just cleared my throat, and blinked my eyes. I'm breathing air.

What do you think? Is this a good place to start? Is it time to start examining these things? I feel like I already know, intellectually, where all this is going. It's, somehow, going to end up at only "I am." As I said before, the only thing I know 100% for sure, is that I am aware and conscious. I can't prove that this keyboard is real, because I am not aware as the keyboard. I can't prove my sister is real, because I can't be aware as her. She can swear up and down that she exists, but that is not proof. There is nothing besides myself that I can be aware as. In other words, I can not see out their eyes, or think their thoughts, or feel the seat beneath them.

OK, time out for now. I think this is plenty for the first try. I'll wait and see what you all think about this.