Be in the world, but not of it.
??
That above is an often used statement used by spiritual seekers but I am not really sure where it originated from in the bible. Regardless...it makes sense, right? We are much better off if we approach this Life with less attachment to the world and with what Ram Dass refers to as "choiceless awareness." Instead of being lost in the drama...always reacting to circumstances and external stimuli just so we do not have to "experience" it or "feel" the suffering that comes as part of the "being alive" package deal...we can step away and simply witness the suffering, as well as the pleasant and neutral experiences, without reaction.
He speaks about this as being an important step in Jhana yoga...the "studying" component. Of course, I do not consider myself much lol but I do see this self immersed in Jhana Yoga, and call myself a Jhana yogi. With this type of yoga we use the mind/intellect to beat the mind/intellect into submission with several techniques.
We may study in order to shift context. After all my studying of scripture, the teachings from wise masters, the world, others and self, the context of reality has changed dramatically for me. I look at things so differently than I did before. I see the normal tendency to get lost in, overidentified with, and to react to stimuli in an unwholesome way that alters our approach to Life and reality. I am not awake because I realize this though. I am just beginning to become aware.
Can you activate that part of yourself that can look at the universe without any reaction?
Jhana meets Dhyana
We take this learning then into our meditation, our mindfulness in order to develop further the witness consciousness. We want to develop that part of ourselves that does not react to stimuli but that responds, instead, in a wholesome way to whatever Life offers us...be it " good, bad or neutral." We detach ourselves from the drama and instead, at a distance, observe it with great awe. Meditation and mindfulness help us to do that. We can then look at physical pain in self or another and instead of saying , "Oh my pain"...we simply say, "Oh! There is the pain" When we look at depression...we can say instead of "Oh I am so depressed! " or "They are so depressed"..."There is depression". We remove the identification from it.
Of course, it isn't easy to stay in witness consciousness. We keep slipping down into the drama and get lost in it again and again. Then with some form of an anchor ( meditation and mindfulness can provide anchors) we bring ourselves back. We keep bringing ourselves back to the space where the witness resides. This is the practice. We are cultivating the witness...that part within all of us that is not all tangled up in worldly things...that is in the world ...but not of it.
We also have to loosen our judgements and expectation about how things should be. We need to face the fact that we do not know how they should be. We actually know very little of Universal Design and mission. We do not have to know. We can learn to look at suffering, feel the pain of it and say, "It is all perfect as it is" through our tears.
The more we cultivate witness consciousness, the more we become witness consciousness. This, according to Ram Dass, is true transcendence...witnessing the witness...and then being the witness...knowing who you really are when you are finished being who you think you are.
Deepak Chopra also reminds us that reality id relative but who we are as witness consciousness is absolute.
All is well.
Deepak Chopra (Sept, 2022) How to Be in the World but not of it: A Guided Meditation Exercise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSot4ApLPgY
Ram Dass/Here and Now Podcast (n.d.) Shifting Contexts. Episode 206. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEDUa81H5AE
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