Walking in Consciousness: Spiritual Walking 5

Inner Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

Inner Work

For the weeks of July 1 & 8, 2019

Walking in Consciousness

We are embedded in awareness, pure awareness. This is the conscious energy, or simply consciousness. Like water is for fish, consciousness is the medium, the empty, cognizant medium, in which we live and because it is all pervasive, we tend to overlook it, not recognizing it for what it is. Instead our attention falls toward the ever-changing displays on this screen of pure awareness: all the exquisitely detailed sensory impressions of each moment. This endless flow of sensory data creates a misdirecting layer that hides the pure awareness underneath it.

However, if we back up a little and look behind what we see, listen past what we hear, and cognize beyond our thoughts, we can open to pure awareness, to consciousness itself, to the ever-present and boundless cognizant stillness, in us and around us. We open to the space from which we see and hear and cognize. And we can walk free within that vastness.

To do so, we need to walk beyond thought. These thoughts of ours pour forth in such a dense and captivating stream, a stream that seems to be our very self, that we are usually and utterly lost in and as those thoughts. This is such an unchallenged way of being and such an unquestioned world-view, that we even believe that we are our thoughts. But we are not our thoughts. Just listen to them for a bit. The thoughts you are hearing are not the you who is listening. And behind all those thoughts is pure mind, pure awareness.

That pure awareness is not something alien to us; it is right here in us all the time. We need only relax back into it and notice it for what it is. Being in contact with our body also helps, because it loosens the thrall of our thoughts. Sensing our whole body widens our stance in our inner world and makes us more stable there. It also opens the door to consciousness, which offers an even wider stance. If we are walking along in a stream of thoughts, then shifting our attention into our body lifts us out of that stream. Building on this base of intentional body contact and sensation, we can then move toward relaxing back and opening into consciousness, our ever-present home.

We do not need to create consciousness: it is already here. We need only open to it, to the boundless awareness we already occupy. This action might not seem so significant, but the ramifications are profound. Surpassing inner peace and release from the bonds of egoism await us there.

For this week, please be in the stillness as you walk. Recognize that stillness as cognizant mind, as consciousness. See that it does not stop at your skin. See that it has no boundaries in space, nor any in time.

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