I’m often asked a version of, “How do we see ‘this’ and feel better?”
Short answer: We don’t.
Longer answer:
This question is always asked on behalf of, and as though we were, limited and separate beings.
That’s not who we are. Indeed, though the activities and feelings are real, the being assumed to own them is not.
There is only THIS. And this is everything. The feeling we want to mend. The ever-changing story playing out. The belief in the being that never was.
And the knowing of all of it. Simple knowing. Dancing. Vibrating. Contracting so so gently into a mind. A mind that is no more than the perceiving, the sensing, the feeling and the thinking. A mind that has the freedom to suggest the being that never was. The being that seems to be the doer and the knower.
Just as you sleep and dream. Immersing yourself in the dreamscape. Merging into the unplanned, unfolding story of the dream. Walking that dreamscape as though you were a part of it. Freely believing yourself to be this dreamt being, who seems to be able to do and to know.
Yet, who but the dreamer knows the story of the dreaming? Who but the dreamer feels the feelings of the dreamt being? Who but the dreamer wakes from the dream?
On waking, where has the dreamt being gone? Where was it even as the dream played out? Did it ever stand apart from your mind? How could a dreamt being ever feel better?
Taking the model of the dream, consider the one who wants to ‘see “this” and feel better’ as a dreamt being. And the dreamt being will never see beyond the limits of the dreamscape. The dreamt being will never escape the dream. Nor do they need to.
The one who feels all the feelings is the dreamer. The one who feels the feeling is you. Did you ever truly forget yourself? Did you ever leave yourself behind?
The end of the dream marks the disappearance of what never was, and the ordinary, obvious knowing of what always is.
“Open your eyes, then open your eyes again.” — Terry Pratchett.
Here, we move beyond the metaphor of the dream. There is no need for the dream to end in order for you to know yourself as yourself. Nothing needs to stop in order to know you are not a separate being, indeed that no such being exists.
And because no such being exists, you are freed to engage boldly with life as it unfolds. The feelings, they continue, there is no need for them to change. Everything is as it always was—but no longer in service to the insatiable needs of a being that never was.
How do you see ‘this’ and feel better?
You don’t. You don’t need to. You always were THIS.
With Love,
Sara
