The other warm, gray, rainy afternoon I was out on my bicycle, listening to Adyashanti on my ipod, and he said “you will lose your inner world.”
I began immediately to be acutely aware of my mind and the way it loves to analyze “inner” and “outer” worlds.
It SEEMS like there’s an inner world. All the churning mulling energy that goes on inside what feels like the head and the body.
Sensations are very busy here, within.
I feel a chill, or hunger, or a clutching in the throat when I feel worried. How about tightness in the gut, or a deep ache in the shoulder blade, or a heavy overall feeling of lack of energy that feels connected to grief.
What about fidgeting, boredom, buzzy energy? That can feel like its inside, too. Along with all the thoughts, images, pictures, scenes, memories, words, sounds, ideas.
Only me is inside here. Having a conversation about everything. Without actually talking out loud.
It will feel like this inner world has a boundary, is held within a container.
But where is the edge? When you close your eyes and meditate….and as they say “go within” what is this place that is “within”?
It’s like, if you keep it with yourself, to yourself, and don’t speak or it or reveal it, there’s a strange sense of the so-called inner world being mysterious, secret, unique, personal….and MINE.
(Wha-ha-ha-ha, the evil barron laughs and looks over his acreage of dark land and says “Mine! All Mine!”)
It feels like there is a “me” inside here. You know what I’m talkin’ about, right?
Your “me” is over there, inside your body/mind and my “me” is over here in this one.
There is a whole entire world in here….of past memories, future expectations, people I’ve encountered, what I recognize, what I’ve learned and know, my personality, my age and physical attributes……..it is ME! Voila!
So if there feels like an inner and an outer….where does the outer start and the inner end?
Impossible to find, really.
But I used to think “well, GENERALLY, the boundary is my skin…except in some situations, it’s two feet outside my skin…except now that I think about it, it’s as far as I can reach, except…it’s complicated.
Kinda like the “facebook” definition of some relationships, where you can indicate what kind of relationship you’re in.
I’m in a relationship with the universe….its complicated.
But what if it isn’t, not really?
Because nothing is truly clear about it. I think “I” am here. But I’m not sure.
Maybe the “I” is as far as I can hear, smell, see, feel, touch, taste.
What about when I talk on the phone to someone across the globe? Or remember something from 3rd grade very vividly? What part of the “I” is THAT?
I realize that the minute I observe, perceive or experience something…a person across the street, a cat meowing under the porch, a car parked outside the window, the recycle bin under the desk, the keyboard I type on….it is now just my experience.
Foggy boundaries, no line.
What if you lost this “inner” world? What would that look like? What might that mean? In a good way?
What if whatever this “I” seems to be was turned inside out, and everything that was supposedly on the inside (all the ruminating, the beliefs, the secrets, the thinking, the opinions) got dumped out on the kitchen table?
And then, what if you didn’t take any of those things seriously any more? What if you lost your labels and conditions and questioned everything?
All those lists of what you should be or do or say or think, all those things you think make your “I”…what if it’s OK to let those go, to find out they aren’t true, to not resist or force or direct or grab at anything?
Who would you be without the thought “this is me”? Without the thought “I need to…I want to…I’m against…I’m for…this/that should happen…”?
How very exciting! How mysterious, and exposed, and empty all at once!
“The important thing is not to know who “I” is or what “I” is. You’ll never succeed. There are no words for it.” ~ Anthony De Mello
Nothing to hide or stash away, just this thing (called the human being Grace by some) experiencing…Life.
“Awakening happens in the absence of a separate self; indeed, the realization that there’s no self here to awaken is the reality that we awaken to. Everything is functioning perfectly just as it is…” ~ Stephan Bodian
Much Love, Grace
P.S. If you think you’re a YOU that needs to earn or receive some money…come join the Money teleclass starting 7/11.