Yoma – Have you ever been out of your depth while learning to swim? Suddenly it is difficult to breathe because of the panic we feel.
So I wonder whether it is getting out of your depth inside you. Some years ago I was swimming along the edge of an island in the Mediterranean. I had my goggles and a snorkel on and was enjoying the view of the seabed about 15 feet below me. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, I swam over the edge of a sheer precipice under the water. I could not see the bottom of that precipice, and the water was very clear. It literally took my breath away and I scrambled back to shallower water. Then, only bit by bit, did I dare to swim out into that amazing depth.
For we all are in a vast awareness - individual human consciousness is like an island in a huge ocean in which there are countless other islands. Above the surface of the water, which is like individual waking self-awareness. In this there is a sense of separate existence, with definite boundaries where the shore meets the sea. Beneath the surface however, one island is connected to all other islands. The land stretches away under the waves and rises here and there into other islands. So, it is thought, personal awareness, beneath our everyday consciousness, shades off into a connection with a collective unconscious we all share. Through this connection we may be able to arrive at insights into other people otherwise denied to us.
Also the black and white as dreams understand it is a huge subject. If you look at the illustration and the start of the text of
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/chinese-dream-beliefs/ it will explain this. It shows how Western Culture has set us on a path of great fear of the dark side of our nature. The middle way can depict any behaviour or attitudes that are not one-sidedness, which otherwise would lead to imbalance within the individual. But at the same time it is not about being perfect or a saint, but the balance between the black and white that leads to a balanced and whole human being with very wide choices. Walking it we balance between the opposites facing us.
Lots of people’s experience of near death experiences tells of a scramble up a dark tunnel toward a great light at the end. Recently I see this as a desperate attempt to escape from the darkness of our beginnings and of bodiless existence. Virtually every description describes the person as in almost the same body as they lived in. Basically they are living in a dream world in which, exactly as in dreams, they conjure up an image of themselves based on their physical existence.
Here is another view of this – “The underlying problem of this after death experience is that any and every shape – human, divine, diabolical, heroic, evil, and animal thing – which the human brain conjures up or the past life recalls, can present itself to consciousness as shapes and forms and sounds whirling by endlessly. The underlying solution – repeated again and again – is to recognize that your brain is producing the visions. They do not exist. Nothing exists except as your consciousness gives it life.”
Of course, as you go deeper into wider awareness, as you begin to let go of your obsession of being just a physical body, you may experience panic – feeling suffocated.
Tony
