Consciousness and Amnesia

How aware are you of your skin? It may seem like a strange question but this thing's been there all the time, covering us, encapsulating us, and rarely do we take any notice of it.


I’ve often thought, and I’m not the first to do so, that the reason we’re here is to witness ourselves as being separate. Or rather the pure consciousness that we call ‘me’ does. You see I have this theory that all is consciousness, and consciousness is LOVE.

So what we experience is really consciousness experiencing itself.


It’s like opening a curtain, bit by bit, allowing more light in.

Perspectives enlarge.


However, in our physical form with its complicated mental structures (senses taking in information from an ‘outside’ that isn't really there, the brain sorting and sifting this information according to its particular traits and prejudices), things can get a little skewed.


So many of us live in the personality. It’s immediate and we think this is where everything is happening and therefore where we should be. But if we can just broaden out of that we will get more flavour, more juice out of life.


A bit like having chocolate and cream rather than just dry pudding!


What if . . .

To explain what I mean I sometimes use the following analogy:


Suppose you live in a beautiful mansion. You are really happy there and love nothing better than going from room to room enjoying all the beautiful things you own. But one day you get curious, you want to see what your home looks like from the outside.


Now, in order to do this you have to step outside. You have to temporarily leave the safety, the comfort, the protection of your home - your womb-like existence - and go into the outside world in order to see the elevation viewpoint.

In short, you have to enter the world of experience.


Sometimes to see what we really are we need to step outside of ourselves. We need to take risks. 


Now, let's stretch the analogy further.


Suppose, while outside admiring your house something caught your eye, just for a fleeting moment. Perhaps some movement amongst the trees, maybe an animal or a rare species of butterfly. But it's enough to make you curious. You decide to investigate.


So off you go down divers lanes and alleyways chasing this illusive something until suddenly you find yourself miles from home and wholly lost. Night falls and you cannot get back. A sense of foreboding comes over you.

 

OK. Let's stretch the analogy further still!


What if you trip and fall and bump your head. And when you wake you cannot remember anything about your real life. You have amnesia. Your home is forgotten, your name, everything about who you are. Your life is a blank.



Now every idea you held of yourself changes. You wander the world aimlessly believing you are a begger. You make unfavourable comparisons between yourself and others.  You envy the down-and-out, wishing you could own a meagre shack like his. To you his rags look like silk. 


The huge irony of course is that you already have everything you need, you're just unaware of it. Consciousness and amnesia.


 

You just stepped outside for a moment, then you got distracted. AND THEN YOU FORGOT! 


Collective amnesia

This is the situation for much of humanity. We are all part of consciousness, but we get easily distracted.


By events of the world, politics, sport, fashion, the latest gossip. And by the things we have to do which are so important: finding a job, raising a family, making a living, the busyness of life.


But all of this is just chasing butterflies, chasing that illusion until we cannot find our way home. World amnesia is very strong at the moment. 



We are all conscious beings. But living in our present state where we appear to be separate from all things, and Source Energy, is akin to a kind of amnesia.

 

You don't have consciousness, you are Consciousness. You don't have awareness, you are Awareness. 


Take a moment now to become aware of your skin, of what's underneath it, of your inner self.


Good. That's you. You're in there, and you're okay. Now, very slowly, without pushing or efforting, gently wake up.

 

Return from consciousness and amnesia to the home page.


There is a voice that doesn’t use words - listen!

Rumi


Reality is merely an illusion - albeit a persistent one.

Albert Einstein