Back in Who Do’s, I spoke of the evolving nature of the apparent Doer. Who it is that appears to be doing stuff. At first, it is me. I am in control and I am the one acting, the person responsible. My fault, your fault. Me.
After first awakening, or sometimes before that in the experience of ‘witnessing’, we experience being or becoming the observer, separate from action. Action, the doing, seems to take place of its own accord.
Of course, its not all tidy and we will tend to move in and out of the completeness of that experience. It will depend on our level of rest, attachment to events underway, and so forth.
The question of who is doing continues to evolve. Action just seems to happen. Then we see the impulses of intention to act arising. But what are they arising from? What we discover depends on the refinement of our perception.
If we already have some of what Genpo called transcendent knowledge, those impulses will be seen to be arising in Self. If that has not yet developed, there will be attention on that and a growing sense of divinity. The mind of the machine will reveal itself. Even to discover that everything done is being done by. That all the laws of nature can be seen personified. Deeper still, the innate intelligence and perfection of it all becomes clear.
At some point, it becomes apparent that the stuff of That and This are the same. The doing is arising from Self and I am That. mySelf. “Be still and know that I am God” as Jesus put it.
What happens next can be 2 stage. Waking from the dream of God, all of this is cast off. All transcendent knowledge, the works. The field of action is found to be a sort of self-contained playground or stage.
But this is still duality – the dream and the real. This is not full Unity. As it deepens, the dream disappears and the world is found to be not separate from the silence. It is quite simply silence moving within Itself. The vast complexity of transcendent knowledge collapses into simplicity. As Genpo observed, it is not the highest truth when it is separate.
Now the doing and the being are one. Indeed, the idea of doing becomes meaningless. In what way can the unmoving move? We could say it seems to move, like an idea flits across the mind.
I spoke about this in the Paradoxes of Perception. How when time collapses into the now, everything is present. There is no change, simply movement of attention across what is. In what way is shifting attention action? It is the doing without doing of the cosmic I.
The simple question of who is doing is fascinating to consider. This evolution through me, God, then Self, and then cosmic I. I tried to make a me, myself and I joke but it didn’t quite work. (laughs)
Finally, it’s useful to again observe that nothing actually changes through all of this except our perception. Our perspective. The value of consciousness we reflect. Being remains, as it is.
Davidya