Visualizing the Student Driver
In my trying to explain the "experience" I have when I visualize myself as the student driver in the vehicle I am practicing in, I lost the "experience" of it. Weird. Trying to conceptualize that which is beyond conceptual explanation can take us from the "experience" of that which we are attempting to explain, and pull us back into the mind. Can't it?
Anyway, I opened up to this podcast this morning and it was like "Wow!" It brought me back to the "experience" of being the driver ( Objective Observer, Quiet Watcher, Detached Witness, Soul etc. ). I also noticed that weird serendipity again when Michael Singer spent some time talking about the "Who is aware?" (I just posted a guided meditation on that). Of course, I have been somewhat of a student of his for years now...I am absorbing his teachings and it just might be coming out of me, as mine. But still I think it is cool how much we think alike in the same time frames.
So back to the Student Driver on the practice course of Life:
What I experience, then, when I see myself as the quiet, forever calm and peaceful driver behind the wheel of this form vehicle (body, mind, energies, names, labels, roles, desires, aversions, reactions, life situations, successes, failures, karma etc) is a wonderful detachment from this identity of 'little me' living this Life. I am in the process of realizing that I am the driver of this experience, (even though this Being drives on cruise control, with or without my awareness). The "student" part of this comes with the relearning of this Truth. I am in the process of eliminating the veil that exists between what I think I am, and what I am. The student graduates when they see they are the driver and not the form they are driving.
The Veil Between What We Think We Are and What We Are
As a student, advancing in my learning, the veil has thinned out quite a bit. I can now, for the most part, though I still often slip into blind spots and bad driving habits, observe the paths on this course and see that they are all there for my learning. They are neither bad or good, wrong or right, shouldn't be or should be...they are just what they are and I can learn from all of it. I am becoming more and more willing to open up to the paths that unfold in front of me and travel down them with less and less resistance. I am even, at times, saying "Bring it on!" when I find myself on some dark foreboding road...paths I would have driven 100 miles around before to avoid. As terrified as I still am at times, I am willing to do this course so I can learn. I want to learn and grow. That goal has become more important to me than listening to my fear.
Just Form
Even more cool, is that I can, from behind the wheel, observe the vehicle I have been given, with all its imperfections and strengths. I see its neurotic tendencies and what I, as "little me" have done to this form with my unconscious and unskillful driving. I can see how the way I have driven in the past over the paths that were laid out before me, has bumped up my fenders, scratched up the paint and has effected my energies. I see the tendencies to want to protect some of these energies and to avoid experiencing more, that still exist within me. I see how challenging it is many times to simply be in this form, let alone to drive it. Yet, there is so much less judgement of it. So much less attachment to it. I no longer see the need to shame it or redeem it. It has so little importance on my mission. When I can say, "This is just a form...partly what I was given and partly what I created," ...it frees me so much to get through the veil and realize who I am and who I am not.
Not the Vehicle; the One Behind the Wheel
Though I may not yet confidently identify as a mature and skilled driver, I know I am not this form it is driving! I am the One behind the wheel observing it. This body with all its rust, noisy exhaust system, and cracked windshield,(as hard as it may be to look at or be in sometimes)...is not who I am. I am the One behind the wheel observing it. This mind ...with all its conflicting and nonstop thinking, its crazy emotions, beliefs, stories and ideas is not who I am either. I am the One behind the wheel watching all this mind stuff. These ever changing and emerging energies that are stuck inside this vehicle from all my past driving experiences ( my karma) is not who I am either. I am the one behind the wheel witnessing these energies emerge. This course I am driving through, with all its unpredictable nature, its smooth paths and its rough ones, its bumps, potholes and obstacles has so little to do with "me". I am simply one soul behind one of the 8 billion wheels out there that gets to observes it all, watch it all, witness it all and experience it all.
We Are All Learning
What this realization does for me is amazing. If I can see myself as a student driver, I am less likely to beat myself up for being anxious and afraid or to resist when those energies arise. I see the fear as a part of the vehicle not the driver...as part of the form, not the formless. I don't try to stop the fear from emerging, I don't try to fix the path "out there"so I feel better "in here" ...I buckle up, sit behind the wheel and I watch it all go down. I just watch it. When I screw up and do something unconsciously, falling away from my mission...I don't get all tangled up in guilt and shame as mind so wants me to do...I look at it as the tendency of this form I am in, a need for more learning and practice, and I detach by slipping behind the wheel once again to witness and observe. When others drive noisily past me or into me, I do not react as I used to. I see them too as students ...some much more advanced than my form, some much less, but regardless I see them all as students learning just like I am learning. Even if I cannot see them clearly, I know there are student drivers somewhere inside those vehicles they are driving. I am caring less and less about what those vehicles look like, how they sound, what they do as I remember that within each form is a Soul on a mission to learn and evolve. I care less and less about how my form appears to them, and find comfort in knowing their form may not know I am in here but their driver does. Every time I do this...look inwardly and outwardly from behind the wheel, I am progressing as a "student" and becoming more and more the graduate driver of this experience of living.
I just think that is so cool! Life isn't so scary when I approach living like that. It isn't so complicated. It isn't about "me" so I am no longer feeling pressured to do anything about it. I can just let it all be as I continue to learn, "I am not this form and all its dramas, I am the one behind the wheel of it."
And there is nothing but peace in this driver seat. Nothing that has to be fixed, or controlled here ...nothing that has to be done. I can just lean back, slip into cruise control, and enjoy the drive.
All is well
Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( October 9, 2023) Your Inner Work. https://tou.org/talks/
No comments:
Post a Comment