Multiple consciousness ?

There is another ‘weird’ feeling that I get sometimes, usually when I am sitting quietly in my garden looking at the trees, plants and stones around me, are in a bus riding through unknown streets lined with houses and shops. I can almost ‘ identify’ with the plant, or a stone or a quiet shady corner of the garden as if I could enter into the existence of a lonely stone, or a plant or a balcony overlooking a street, as if I could touch these ‘inanimate’ things with my consciousness, perhaps a kind of multiple consciousness. It is very difficult to describe this feeling/awareness in words.

I just came across a passage by Ouspensky in  ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, which sounds very similar to my experience. Ouspensky describes what happened when he walked around in a state of, what he called,  self-remembering. :

“I used very much to like to wander throught St. Petersburg at night and to ’sense’ the houses and streets. …. I did not think of anything. I simply walked along while trying to remember myself and looked about; the sensations came by themselves.”

:

at the mercy of our minds

Most of us are at the mercy of our schizophrenic minds -which consists of shifting moods and states – an everchanging perspective of our circumstances and the people around us. Once in a while a flash of objectivity descends on us and we realise how easily we slip into our reactive, petty selves.

the journey within

What happens in the outside world is of little consequence as compared to the journey you have to make within yourself. The outside world and events are part of a script written by someone else (your past karma’s ?), over which you have little control.

…was blessed and could bless.

 

This often happens to me when I am roaming alone in a new city. The last time it happened was when I was roaming alone in the streets of Amsterdam as a tourist, taking photographs. It began with a feeling of complete well being, child like curiosity and joy as I walked around looking at the quaint shops and houses, which, coming from India, was very new and interesting for me. Slowly I was engulfed in complete stillness and peace, my mind was almost void of any thoughts, I wanted this mood to last forever, the feeling is indescribable, no where close to our everyday feeling of what we call ‘happiness’ or ‘joy’. But as soon as I realized that I had run out of film role, I was thrust back into everyday reality. It was almost like falling into a pit after having flown over mountains and valleys. Such moods come and go. Making the mundaness of everyday reality more and more unbearable and I am reminded of a poem by Yeats:

While on shop and street I gazed/ My body of a sudden blazed/ And twenty minutes more or less/ It seemed so great my happiness/ That I was blessed and could bless…