THREE STATEMENTS ABOUT THE 'SELF'

Here are three different statements, on their surface quite distinct, but which I’ve put alongside one another because each one says something important, and complementary, about the nature of the “Self”:

“The Tathagata also teaches…that there is, in truth, the Self in all phenomena”. —The Buddha, from The Mahaparinirvana Sutra

“Now, how to explain God consciousness to you? This is as close as you can come: right now, each one of you sitting there in the audience is aware of everybody else, aware of me, aware of this building and everything else. But in God consciousness, there is an inversion; you are this building, you are everyone else being aware of you. And so all things exist simultaneously in God consciousness.” —Shelly Trimmer (student of Yogananda)

“The single most important thing to realize about astral travel is, you don’t actually go anywhere - that’s because you already are everywhere. It’s really just a matter of shifting your attention from one part of yourself to another.” —Goswami Kriyananda (student of Shelly Trimmer)

POSTSCRIPT: In response to this post, Julie C. below commented, “So when you hear about life reviews of near death experiencers, they always talk about multiple perspectives...some even say they feel they are the background of the scene - the sky, the sun, the road. Shelly was way ahead of his time. Thanks for this!”

Her comment reminded me of something I posted on social media last year about the wave/particle duality, which strikes me as possibly related to what these quotations above are saying. I thought it was worth adding to my post, here:

There is something in science known as the “wave-particle duality.” It tells us that, depending on one’s method of measurement, photons (or electrons) can behave either as a specific, individual “thing,” or on the other hand more like a wave, relatively spread out in space.

That strikes me as analogous to the difference between our consciousness in the waking state versus when we are conscious in the dream state—or for that matter the afterlife state.

That is, when we’re awake, our personality acts more like a particle—an individualized ego located in a specific point of space and time. In that state, we seem to have agency over our lives, and what is happening to and around us.

But when we enter the dream state—or when we cross over into the so-called “death” state—our consciousness becomes more spread out like a wave, less occupying a particular point than existing as a broader reality where space and time are far more fluid. Here, the ego appears to be less like an actor than a “re-actor,” responding to what is unfolding around and within one.

For the esotericist, this difference can obviously be related to the symbolism of the Sun versus the Moon, the archetypal masculine and feminine, and to factors like “digital” versus “analog,” left brain vs. right brain, rationality versus emotions, pingala and ida, and so on. We exist with a foot in both of these worlds, but generally more in one than the other.

In what Shelly referred to as God consciousness this shift extends considerably further, where an “inversion” occurs and the polarity moves from that ego/particular viewpoint to the field/whole perspective. In that process, it’s not so much that one’s ego is annihilated as it is superseded by that awareness of the field, the greater whole.

Ray Grasse is a writer, astrologer, and photographer based in the American Midwest. He is author of ten books, including The Waking Dream, Under a Sacred Sky, and An Infinity of Gods. His websites are www.raygrassse.com and www.raygrassephotography.com.