“He who hears not me but the logos will say: All is one.”
Heraclitus
In this very moment, you can be in total harmony with your own presence and immediate experience, and being in tune with ones own self is the surest way to understand and enjoy the life that is being lived. Here below is an exercise divided into four phases aimed at allowing direct experienceDirect experience is simply you being yourself in the immediacy of the present moment. That is, you being yourself without any filtration made by the psychological aspect of your mind. to happen naturally in your life. I recommend a slow reading of all these phases simultaneously as you’re trying to live out the guidelines.
1: The Body
Sit or lay down somewhere you can be relatively comfortable. Then wind down and proceed by effortlessly turning your minds eye or attention towards the sensation of having a physical body. Feel the weight of it and the buzzing sensations of the primal life force moving through you. If there is any specific place of discomfort or if there is any body part that maybe happens to be a little cold, irritated or what have you, turn your attention gently towards that area and rest your awareness there. If you’d like you could go deeper into that area by placing your hands consciously on that body part and by doing so combining your senses and mind, if not just continue observing the sensations happening in your body. Now de-focus from these localized parts of your body and again feel your body’s total weight. Feel its diversity and its unity. Rest your awareness on the entire body as one organism, and don’t give too much attention to the separate parts. Feel it and be it.
2: The Mind
Now that you are at ease and your attention is one with your body, turn your attention towards more subtle objects occurring in the screen of your consciousness. Notice how your thoughts and feelings appear and disappear, see how they connect with each other and in doing so forming a certain narrative or description of what happened or of what is going to happen. Notice these diverse mental and emotional energies and try to feel them out just the same way you felt out your body. Now of course you can’t physically touch or grasp a thought or an internal feeling the same way you can do with a body part, however what you can do is rest your minds eye on them. In fact you are doing so each and every second they appear without really noticing it. Every thought appears to suck in your attention towards itself involuntarily. Notice this and notice this subtle internal realm of yourself.
3: The I
Now switch back your attention towards the body again. Everything is still there I presume and the sensations may have migrated or changed places but the life force buzzing in you is still pretty similar to how it was a couple minutes ago. Now gently switch back again, turn your minds eye towards the internal world of you, your personality, your thoughts and your feelings. Try now as if you could hold your own biography and life story in your minds grasp. Try to know your entire story by simply resting your attention on the entire mental realm. The mental realm which is called the story of me. Feel the subtle realms of your consciousness. and now turn back your attention towards the weight of your body. Feel the whole body as one unit, and don’t pay too much attention to certain specific places, but see rather the totality of the body. Feel the entire body pulsating with life and proceed now to the next stage and final stage.
4: The Perceiver
This phase is the climax of all the other phases. Now go about by turning your attention towards itself. This will sound strange and counter-intuitive but give it a try and see what happens. See how the attention is always moving and changing the object of its focus. Try to direct its focus on itself, or to put it in another way, turn your attention towards your own awareness. In the beginning it will feel like your trying to look at your own eyes but this will be transformed. See how the attention is at times like a monkey on a tree that jumps around restlessly. Observe the tendencies of how your attention functions. Now know with clarity that this attention is an integral aspect of you, but keep in heart that its still an aspect of you and not your definition. You are something that watches the attention moving about hither and thither, your nature is not its nature. You are beyond it, just as you are beyond your body, your thoughts, your feelings, your personality, your biography, your dreams, your fears, your identity and your mind. You are even beyond your minds eye. These are merely aspects of your being but they are not who you are.
The Ultimate
You have neither beginning or end. You cannot be seen by your attention which sees all other objects, because you’re not an object whether physical or mental to be seen. You are the seer of all things and therefore in constant absolute subjectivity. Anything that your mind can see is not who you are. Your essence is immaculate and your nature is unfathomable. Realize this deeply in your being and you shall forever be in direct experience of yourself and the universe.
You have no name, you have no form, you are eternally happy and content. You cannot be destroyed nor can you be created, notice that in this state you have neither friend nor foe, sister nor brother, father nor mother. In this state you are free from all bindings and attachments. You are eternally free because you rest in your own weightless and formless space.
Any faculty of the intellect cannot define you, for your realm is beyond them. This is the ultimate truth, see and let see. You are who you are looking for and what you are looking for is where you’re looking from.
Daniel Seeker is a wandering dervish and lifelong student of the past, present and future. He realized that he was made of immaculate and timeless consciousness when meditating in his hermit cave on the island of Gotland. His writings are mostly a reflection of that realizaton. Daniel currently studies history, philosophy, egyptology and western esotericism at Uppsala Universitet. He’s also currently writing his B.A. thesis in history which explores how Buddhist and Hindu texts were first properly translated and introduced to the western world in the late 18th and 19th century.