Way too often do we see phrases such as:
This smell reminds me of home …
These images remind me of my life in …
This taste is a reminder of my favorite food from when I was …
The point here is that if your senses are being used to remind you of “home”, you have no idea what feeling at home feels like just as its own thing. If you have only lived in this world of sensory remembrances, you are merely living in the world of associations.
Here onward, we are going to travel in worlds beyond association, worlds that exist beyond words and thoughts. Deep infinite space where you can feel at home without the need for physical sensory perception.
What is the purpose of all this?
Not only do you start feeling a whole new kind of comfort being yourself, your sensory experience gets enriched infinitely.
When your senses are free of unnecessary mental associations, your senses are “lighter” and able to sense a much subtler reality that is far richer than what is apparent to the mind.
Equally important is knowing yourself beyond this life and personality. Because then you have unlocked the doorway of consciousness and life beyond life as you know it…
Knowing yourself at this level is to become pure consciousness. In this moment you are not identified with a personality that is defined in a world of words and characteristic traits. You exist beyond all superficial notions of self. This realm of consciousness is based in awareness of something when you are nothing.
Just today I saw a post quoting Lao Tzu from the Tao Te Ching:
Tao is the self of selflessness
This space has very often been called the void or oneness where the ego dissolves.
But where the ego dissolves, you can become infinite as a new self. While dissolving into infinite “oneness” without a sense of self has immeasurable pleasure, it does not give you something practical to use in your everyday life. But creating a new self based on this emptiness, an Essential Self gives you the possibility to enter infinity at any moment while being “functional” in the everyday aspect.
The change comes here
When you become this essential self, you now define your traits and functions. This is the opposite of being told who you are and conforming to blind rules that make others comfortable.
Furthermore, knowing that you have defined your “self”, knowing it is a creation, means you always know that at the deepest level it is an illusion. The nice thing is that it’s your illusion and you get to play with it the way you want — no limits beyond those you set for your self. The freedom to create your own boundaries to define yourself, gives you the chance to, as Blake said:
experience infinity in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour