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What It’s like to Feel Responsible for Everything
Last night, I woke up at around two a.m. and looked around. It was very clear that all that was happening was what was apparently being witnessed: everything in my field of vision plus the thoughts, feelings, and sensations were everything. There was clearly no separate being that was witnessing this; it was one seamless whole.
What was surprising was that the implied self that places itself at the center of the universe is clearly not real. The self was clearly the only thing that definitely was not happening. It’s amazing that the illusion of self seems to persist even though it’s the only thing that is very clearly not happening.
It’s hard to understand and accept what I’m writing because the sense of self is so ingrained into us as individuals and as a society. It’s pure sacrilege to even question its existence. The self is like the emperor’s new clothes that we all reassure each other are really there. That story is such a great analogy that it’s hard for me to believe that it’s not ultimately about the self-illusion.
This morning, while making coffee, I wondered how come what seemed to be happening was centered around a body. Then it became clear that what is happening is, in fact, not even centered around a body; it’s all happening with no separation; there is no inside or outside, no body-threshold…
