Awake Joy is a guide to the Heart
and is designed to be your companion throughout
your journey to Self-discovery. Therefore, it
emphasizes significant transitions to encourage
deeper awareness, rather than residing in any
sense of arrival. If you can decipher from this
section your current reference point, you will
have at hand the awareness that leads to a deeper
surrender that will ultimately happen anyway!
The awareness of your current reference point
means that you are already beyond it,
since you are aware of the point. The
direction is always toward that which is aware.
A point of reference is a general indicator to
move beyond.
As an example of using a reference point, I
might ask someone for directions to a certain
address. That person might first ask, if I know
where the Post Office is, if my search address
is nearby. I am not looking for the Post Office,
but the reference point is helpful in orienting.
Likewise, I am not directing you to the reference
points below. They are meant for general orientation.
You might first review in more depth certain
sections of this book and then proceed by investigating
for yourself within that area.
The analogy that I am going to apply is a multi-layered
chocolate cake. I further expand the nature of
the bottom layers in Part I: The Dream and Part
II: The Eyewitness. I develop the top layers
in Part III: The Pure Being and Part IV: The
Heart. Each dimension is parallel to the one
above it and all exist simultaneously.
The body reference point is
the bottom layer. I am the time-based ego and
I am identified with the dream of form. I am
not aware that I am dreaming and that my world
is the mental image that I am projecting. My
attention is on you and I am not conscious that
this focus is to primarily enhance or protect
myself. My identity is my body and I am unconscious
of being. This layer is the battlefield of conflict
and I am the sufferer. I am also an illusion.
As the ego-body, I believe that this is the only
dimension and I am not conscious of the layers
above me.
The eyewitness reference point is
the next layer and I am the self-observer. The
Eyewitness is a study of me, my form, and my
interactions with my world; the study of the
false. I am still the ego, but I am progressing
toward freedom of this state of consciousness.
I continue to look out at you, but I am primarily
interested in “me” for the broader
purpose of self-understanding. I study my personal
consciousness as the subject of my world. “I
am the body” idea is at the forefront and
I predominantly attend my inner objects of thought,
physical sensation, mental images, and emotions.
I am becoming conscious of my personal suffering
and how it perpetuates.
The “I am” reference point is
a layer that is beyond “you and me.” I
am conscious of my being and I am attending the
space around my objects in the world, as well
as my inner space beyond my thoughts, mental
images, emotions, and body. My abode is the inner
body, but I am not yet free of form. I enjoy
a beautiful feeling of connectivity with all
being and appreciate oneness within the world
of experience. In unity consciousness, you and
I are one, and I am at one with all that I experience.
I sometimes get lost in time fixation and therefore,
I still identify with thoughts, but I can release
them when I become aware of it.
Detachment is not a reference point ,
but it is a marker. It is a thin layer of icing
that is applied before adding the next cake layer.
Formlessness dynamically disconnects from the
body and I am no longer identified with the idea
of “ me.” I am now consciously awake
to the dream of form and the world is unreal.
This shift is a universal transition and allows
the bliss of Awake Joy to vibrantly
emerge. The icing bestows the mystical phenomena
that are commonly associated with awakening.
“I am the witness only” reference
point is formlessness and I have no
form. My being has transitioned to the Pure
Being. I am the primal sense of being-consciousness-bliss
and the substratum of form. I have surrendered
conflict and I am now the playground of peace.
I release subtle layers of the intellect and
transmute the illusion of collective suffering.
If thoughts are present, I have no sense that
they speak in any real way and thus personal
suffering is impossible. I am also conscious
that the layers below me are unreal. I am not
aware that duality persists. In other words,
two subtle reference points endure. I am not
conscious that I am still a reference point
and that I will be eliminated.
“Pure I” has no reference
point whatsoever and I am the final
layer of our cake. “Pure I” is
Self-realization and the fulfillment of non-duality.
Not one word that I could say would be true.
The Heart is full embodiment and
I am Awake Life. The bad news is that we are
not going to take this cake and eat
it. The good news is that we are going to give it
all away by serving it. The chocolate cake is
not ready to selflessly serve without the fudge
frosting! The frosting is the art of awake living.
The purpose of this chart of reference points is
to assist your current perception. Once perceived,
it is not calling for mental interpretation. Instead,
we release the perception to open to the essential
Essence to which they point. Interpretation will
lead to analysis and theorization, which will conceal
and sabotage the purpose of the charting. Throughout
all of these transitions, the Pure Awareness that
I am never changes. Whether I seem to take on form
or not, in every case, I am the Eternal Now that
is Life. I no longer differentiate between any
of my dimensions and I am fully integrated as the
Totality.
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