An Exalted State of Consciousness

I wrote recently of the toggle switch, toggling back and forth between consciousness of ALL and a smaller consciousness. How do we toggle? How do we get there when we are feeling stuck in our little lives, with our problems and our fears, our questions and our needs?

In the moment. We get there by being in the moment. We have to actually stop seeking and simply BE. And it helps tremendously to focus on something which simply IS. A tree, a plant, a hillside.... A rock.... These help us to ground into stillness and beingness because that is where they are. We literally take of their stillness and incorporate it into our consciousness.

Trillium grandiflorum

Even an image will suffice if you allow yourself to sink fully into that image. And when you have partaken fully of the stillness of this plant, become that stillness yourself, you are fully present in the Now. There is no past and no future. There is only the silence and the Now. You can do this because the plant is fully present in the Now, as is the image of it. You are here now in silence, the mind stilled. This is the exalted state of consciousness. In it is the ALL. Yet there are no words.

At the deepest level of this state of consciousness, all separation dissolves and you experience unity consciousness - Oneness with ALL. The sense of yourself as an individual dissolves and you experience the Eternal Presence, the I AM.

Center yourself in the Now by becoming fully present with that which is fully present. What comes to mind for me, having grown up in a house filled with works of art, is the concept of a still-life painting. Why are we so taken by these works that depict a simple bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers. Still life. We are invited to become fully present with that which is fully present.

Centaurea

If you can immerse yourself in its presence, you can bring yourself into the I AM consciousness in the moment, in the Now. Thoughts stop. The mind falls silent. You know only this, which is an integral part of the ALL. In this One, is ALL.

It is said that we can ascend to this, more easily now than at any other time that we have known, times being what they are. We can ascend to this, as to the high country of the world's great mountain ranges. We can ascend to this as to heights where the air is thin and the winds are too cold for us to long remain. We can ascend to this, but we cannot live here. It is said that we cannot sustain this exalted state of consciousness. For when we are in it, we literally cease to exist as individuals. The self disappears and is replaced by the I AM, by the ALL.

Yet I choose to live in this I AM consciousness! I believe that we can become this and still be selves in the world, individuated, intact, in point of presence in the moment. We can toggle back and forth when the world asks of us that we remove our presence from the eternal Now and bring it back into the illusion of separation and busy-ness. That's what I'm playing at these days.... Playing with the seemingly impossible..... Bringing into reconciliation within me the world of time and form, of needs and wants.... And the eternal stillness, the point of presence of the I AM.

And this is sacred work, this balancing act, this careful traversing of the high country, this exploration of humanity's Always and Never. And there is no map, no guidebook, no signpost here in this expanse of consciousness of the ALL. This is the reverberant stillness of the zero point field. This is the place beyond all words.

Early May woodland, Chester County, Pennsylvania