Learning to witness thoughts, feelings, images, sensations, and even consciousness itself is a core purpose for many experienced meditators. The challenge is, “How to do this?” Most approaches use some form of rarefied thoughts (affirmations and mantras), feelings (adoration, thankfulness), images (mandalas, tankas), sensations (breathing), consciousness (moving from past/future into now, lucid dreaming) to leverage detachment from our addiction to our thoughts, feelings, and sensations. IDL takes a different approach. It has you become perspectives that already witness these realms of experience.
Here is an example of an interview that builds identification with an aspect of your experience that is always constantly witnessing and meditating: the sky.
Imagine that you are sitting in meditation witnessing your thoughts, your feelings, your images, your bodily and energic sensations, your beingness. How do you feel?
Free; at peace.
If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?
“Clear space or clear light. It takes the form of the sky. The sky looks blue, but only in the distance and only during the day. Actually, the sky has no color.”
Becoming the sky, here is what it had to say:
Sky: “I encompass all things. I have no future or past, or “now.” There is no time or space for me. I like that I am beyond all likes and dislikes, all preferences, because I encompass all things, including all preferences. This is a strength, because it means I am beyond the drama that preferences create. It is not that I prefer not having preferences, because that too is a preference. It is that I don’t do preferences. I am so subtle it is very easy for me to be ignored and taken for granted when I am in fact the context which makes life possible. This is not a weakness for me and it’s nothing I dislike, it’s simply a fact that most beings are asleep to me.”
Sky: “While people may think that I was created by the person doing this interview, from my point of view, I created him…I personify that which does not die, that is formless, spaceless, and is completely awake and aware. I take any and every form. When animals and plants breathe me I am intimately associated with every cell of their being. Rocks contain me. There is nowhere that I am not. There is nothing that I am not.”
Sky: “Regarding confidence, I score myself a ten on a scale of zero to ten. I know no fear. There is nothing that I am in conflict with. I always completely accomplish being me. I score myself a ten in compassion because I give myself completely and selflessly to every form that wants to breathe me in or make me a part of it. I accept completely and selflessly that which any plant, animal, factory, or volcano wants to give off into me. I score myself a ten in wisdom because I am ageless and I experience everything from every perspective. There is nothing I do not know that has ever been done, thought, or felt. I score myself a ten in acceptance because I accept myself and others completely. Wind, tornadoes, dark, light, meteors, death, drama, nuclear explosions – I accept it all. I score myself a ten in inner peace because what’s there not to be peaceful about? I embrace all things. I also score myself a ten in witnessing because I witness everything, even space, and every form. If humans scored like I did they would be in a constant state of meditation, regardless of what they were doing, thinking, or feeling. Their minds would be clear and centered and that would be the foreground or figure. The contents of their minds, which are normally the foreground or figure, would still be present as thoughts and feelings, but they would be in the background, or ground. They would witness both their inner and outer worlds with equanimity and wakefulness, whether awake, dreaming, or deeply asleep. Of course this is so far beyond them that this is unlikely, but by becoming me they can experience a piece of that, and with repeated exposures, that possibility can become more of a reality for them.”
Sky: “I recommend that humans be fully present as me, the sky, as frequently as they can remember to do so. Regarding cultivating the witness in meditation, I would recommend humans become me when they meditate. Not see me, but become me. Become me as a ten in each of the six core qualities. Regarding generalizing meditative consciousness to everyday mind, I recommend the same. Anchor to a constant awareness of the sky as breath and prana.
Regarding following the recommendations of interviewed emerging potentials like me, I would remember that awareness is everything. That means reading them over regularly, keeping reminders of those recommendations close at hand.”
Sky: “Become me when meditating, when in drama, when confused or unsure. Allow me to run your life and make your decisions and see what happens. Ask me for my opinion regularly.”
Sky: “I have come into your life to help you wake up out of your addiction to the drama of your thoughts, feelings, images, sensations, and states of being.”
Comment: Who you are really isn’t an identity or a being or a self. It’s not a “part” of you. It transcends and includes all forms. It doesn’t “have” the six core qualities, it transcends and includes them. There is no birth or death, time or space or drama from this perspective. It is in a constant state of meditation. Becoming this perspective will automatically put you in more or less of a meditative state, depending upon how completely you are willing to identify with it. This perspective is not internal to you; it witnesses you. It does not judge you or pass judgment on what you do or do not do.
It calls on you to awaken to a perspective that transcends and includes all other perspectives. It does not mean it is better or best, only that it becomes available as an option once it is learned, where before it was not an option.
This interview is only an example. It cannot replace and is not meant to replace your own direct contact with your own unique and personal experience. For this process to heal, balance, and transform your own life, enhance your own ability to meditate, and build within you an ongoing meditative consciousness, you must first interview your own sky (you will find the protocol here), then practice becoming it, particularly when you meditate and as you fall asleep at night.
Please leave us your comments regarding this interview and your own. By all means, share your own experiences with Integral Deep Listening.
