Nothingness and Existence Prior to Consciousness

Consciousness. Awareness. I used to think this was synonymous with the ‘I Am’, but now it looks like they’re actually two distinctly unique things.

Nisargadatta Maharaj has a text titled Prior to Consciousness (you can find some quotes from it here). I remember reading over some of the quotes some time ago and noticing how much of it went right over my head. “Prior to Consciousness?” Can anything really exist apart from consciousness? (If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it still make a sound?) What kind of reality is existence without consciousness? Is Nisargadatta arguing semantics here or is he rockin’ out some ninja-level mojo here?

It turns out life decided to set up a really powerful experience to help me understand what he meant…

Turning Off in Meditation

The other day I had this really strong urge to go meditate. As I sat down on my bed and leaned up against the wall, I consciously told myself that I wasn’t going to try and accomplish, create, or manifest anything in this time allotted. Should I need to receive or experience something I’d be open to it, but there wasn’t a demand for even that. It was just a decision to BE, to be in a state of full surrender.

Quickly I began dropping down into a deep meditative state and within maybe 2-3 minutes or so, I could feel myself starting to expand beyond the limits of my physical body. Basically the beginnings of an OBE (out of body experience). The thought crossed my mind as to whether or not I should ground myself and hold this energy back down into the physical, but I let that go and allowed my energy to do what it would.

The next thing I know I come to, still sitting upright in my bed. I take a few breaths and then open my eyes and look over at the clock. An entire HOUR had passed. In that time I had basically shut down and turned off. There was no conscious experience of anything during that hour, no awareness of self in that time, no thoughts, and no memory of what happened at all.

I know I didn’t just fall asleep. For months I would get sleepy towards the end of a meditation and I’d stop and take a nap. (To be honest, I think it was my ego trying to get out of meditation and making my body tired to get me to quit, heh.) Because that’s happened SO many times, I know exactly what it’s like to get tired and want to fall asleep when meditating and this definitely wasn’t that. I was still sitting upright. Not even my head had slumped over. It was literally as if my entire sense of self had been turned off and my body was frozen in time.

If this is what the experience of death is like (annihilation of self), then death is really nothing to worry about. In nonexistence, there’s no one there to experience death, much less have a problem with it. When you come back after the experience, there’s nothing there to remember. Going through this experience really helped alleviate my fear of death to some degree.

I noticed it hasn’t wiped out my fear of death altogether yet as a few days later during meditation, I could feel the life force literally leaving my body altogether, as if it was being ripped out of my chest, and there was still attachment to keeping *my life force energy* in *my body* for separating them would mean death of self. Resistance to the experience. I’d consciously surrender more and more trying to release the resistance totally, but then the phone rang and pulled me out of my meditation. heh…

This is very different from the conscious experience of nothingness, of the recognition of the no thing that manifests as everything. That’s been experienced before here too and this most definitely was NOT that. In that there is conscious awareness. In this there is not.

Knowing that I didn’t simply cease to exist for a little while and then spontaneously come back into existence, it became clear that there is a difference between consciousness and the ‘I Am.’ I Am is eternal, but the experience of and memory of conscious awareness of the I Am is apparently not. One can exist without conscious awareness of self. It’s similar to how you continue to exist even when in a state of deep sleep between what we call the waking state and the dream state. In that gap there is no reality being experienced (physical reality, the dream world, or otherwise), nor is there a sense of consciousness that is conscious of anything, much less itself. It’s quite literally as if someone flicks the light switch off on you and then later flicks it back on. It’s one thing to have it happen when you’re asleep or get knocked out. That’s normal. This was different…

What’s Going On?

So I’ve always had an association in my mind between consciousness, existence, life, being, and the I Am. Many names for God, right?

If you were to ask me what happened, I don’t really know, but it’s my feeling that there was an experience on some higher than conscious level. Do you remember what happened prior to your birth? Probably not, and yet there were many experiences to be had there disconnected from this physical incarnation. I’ve read that when we go to sleep and go into that state of offness, our soul often leaves our body again and goes off into other dimensions and astral realms and whatnot, so perhaps this was similar.

Reaching out to friends in inquiry about this experience, I’m finding that a number of us have been walking along similar points in the journey for quite some time now. For example, CaterpillarWoman from our forums just wrote a post about That Which is Beyond Consciousness. It’s almost like a flock of birds where we’re all moving independently together. I’ve even found myself going through the same experiences and using the same words and examples as people I don’t even talk to. It’s pretty wild to see this happening. Life is so fricken’ cool…

Anyways, with respect to this experience I’ve come across a number of things that my friends have shared with me:

Developing One’s Abilities as a Conduit

A friend of mine named Kathy who I met recently and was guided to ask about this experience shared that she’s had pretty much the same experience in meditation as me. Sweet! Good to hear! Here is some of what she had to say on the topic, shared with you guys with her permission:

Practitioners of meditation, yoga and healing (or in my case Shamanic) breathing techniques are capable of inducing themselves into a state of trance that sets them up for out of body experiences.

The reason you have no memory is because your body wasn’t along for the ride – it was a soul experience – which means that your higher self is capable of sharing information with your about where you went and what happened.

“Trance can be both voluntary and involuntary, but in both the effect is the same – disassociation of the soul from the body, and temporary detachment from everything related to body. It is neither the state of wakefulness nor that of the sleep. It is an intermediate state of being.”

Visionaries, prophets and psychics all are capable of mastering this state of being. So, if I had to “guess” I’d say that you’re being prepped/initiated for the next step of what will be asked of you on your life path. You’re being shown a portal that’s open to you for your futher development…and how cool is that?!

The trance state is what’s being developed – yes OBE is a part of it in that it’s why you feel you’ve turned off – but the skill of going into a deep trance state at will is what’s being developed – it’s something Edgar Cayce mastered, as an example. You’re further developing your skills as a conduit ;-)

Woohoo!!! Hearing this is SUPER exciting to me. You see, I’ve been meeting SO many channels over the past year or so and am having a great time learning about what channeling is all about and exploring the similarities and differences between channeling styles, so much so that I recently put out a youtube video on the subject. Just seeing it from an outsider’s perspective and watching documentaries on channeling like Tuning In, as fun as that is, I wanna play too! So I’ve intentionally developing my intuition and listening skills, and even going through Bashar’s workshop again called The Art of Channeling (available on youtube) where they explain all about channeling and then even teach you how to become a channel.

The past few days since this experience, I’ve been feeling strong pulls to continue meditating and I’ve noticed that when I do, I drop down into a really deep meditative state really quickly. This shift is something very new for me and so I’m really following it to see what develops.

The State of Nothingness

Next I’d like to share with you a dialog that was brought forth a few months ago in response to a question I had for my friend Marie. She took my question and asked God about it. The following is her answer, shared here with you with her permission:

Dear God. My friend asked me this question:

“When we get hit on our head and lose consciousness, our whole reality as we know it ceases to exist. We no longer experience it. Other people can see our bodies, but we see nothing. I don’t think we actually cease to exist in those moments. Is there actually a conscious experience then and our physical memory is simply disabled in those moments or what?”

The state of nothingness is a state of intense transformation, Marie. This is a state which your energy experiences right before it takes a human form and shortly after the death of the physical body. Also, this very state may be experienced by embodied being at the moments of major transformations.

I agree: often this state feels like death. No wonder people don’t have a sense of body or memory in this state… Why do I have to experience death while alive?

In order to become aware of yourself as all that is, many people first need to realize themselves beyond their body and mind. In other words, they need to break thorough that wall which separates life and death. The state of nothingness is that train that takes you through the tunnel of unconsciousness to the “other side” of awareness. It is that bridge that allows you to experience existence and nonexistence simultaneously.

Sometimes these ‘trips’ happen spontaneously. Why is that?

Nothing happens spontaneously, my dear: when you are consciously or unconsciously ready to know more of yourself, your energy creates an experience of entering that train.

Does everybody have to experience this ‘train’ in order to become you?

Yes, but not in every lifetime. For instance, someone who experienced this state this life time and evolved through it to the point when the train is no longer needed will incarnate in his next lifetime with an awareness of himself as all that is.

So, the purpose of that train is to take one from the world of relative to the world of absolute?

True. Except for these two are not separate worlds, even though it may appear that way. The mastery though, is to complete the circle, not getting stuck in any of its fragments. True awakening starts with the awareness of your body and mind as limited reality; continues with the awareness of self beyond the body and the mind, and ends with an awareness of the body and the mind as unlimited reality.

So, one doesn’t have to take these trips to ‘the other side’ of awareness his entire life?

Not at all. The purpose of taking any trip is to arrive to your destination. If you can remember that your destination is not the train itself and not the places you visit, but your own self, the experience of being on the train will eventually disappear.

Many people don’t know how to act on that train. Can you give advice?

Get your mind out of the way.

That’s it?

That’s it. If you can resist the temptation to analyze the train and the landscape, but simply allow the train to take you through transformation, you will merge with the absolute effortlessly.

This makes so much sense. You said that my entire being is going through transformation in this state. Does it include my mind?

Of course it does. This is why thinking in this state is nearly impossible.

So, it’s like a surgery with Divine anesthesia.

Great analogy.

Well, now I can see why “waking up” in the middle of the “procedure” can be so frustrating… My last question is: Why when one is in this state others perceive him as a human being but he doesn’t perceive himself this way?

Others perceive you as a human being, because you never quit being one. It is just that in the beginning of your transformation your mind doesn’t have the capacity to perceive yourself as more than one thing. So, it perceives you either as a human being with a body and thoughts or as a silent awareness with no body and thoughts. Eventually your mind transforms so much, that it develops capacity to be aware of all aspects of your being simultaneously. That is when you no longer need the train to bridge between ‘two’ worlds, but you realize yourself as an embodiment (separateness) of the absolute (oneness).

Thank you.

and so with the wonderfully helpful suggestion to get the mind out of the way and continue focusing on myself (as usual), I’m going to wrap up this post and go back to enjoying the journey and following the guidance of my energy and intuition. It’s creating such a wonderful transformational process here and I am very grateful to be along for the ride.