I sensed a shift in a brief moment of awareness. In that moment I realized that experiences never end. They keep flowing through our lives and either we are aware of them or not.
If you take this moment now and expand your awareness you will see what I mean. Right now you are reading this and having responses to these words and ideas. There is the flow of energy in your body as you sit here. There are feelings activated by your thoughts.
You are a stream of experiences flowing through the now. If you pay attention, there are thoughts telling you what is going on and under those thoughts, just experiences.
Your thoughts are you trying to make sense out of the moment. Your experiences don’t need understanding, they just happen.
These never ending experiences represent more of who you are then your thoughts.
As I write this I am walking the edge of a fresh perspective. I am attempting to put into words this expanding awareness about myself as a river of experiences instead of a stream of thoughts.
In this moment I am writing and exploring words that explain what I am aware of. At the same time, I’m feeling this energetic experience of insight as it grows within me.
The experiences keep happening one after another:
I can sense my body is slightly braced for the morning cold as the house warms up.
I feel an urge to get up and go walk the beach in the fresh air of a sunny morning.
My self-discipline honed from years of practice anchors me in my seat.
My mind at the same time is throwing a variety of options trying to convince me that doing something else is better.
Even a thought, “I am thirsty,” won’t keep me from typing the words onto the screen.
Experiences are always happening in each moment yet much of the time the mind is racing forward or rewinding us in the past. Then we miss out on seeing ourselves in the now.
This flow of experience is very informing. It tells us who we are, what’s going on, and what makes us feel alive and what doesn’t.
Our bodies speak to us through expansion or contraction. Words overrun quiet and peaceful moments. Images pop-up and take us back to old memories. Thoughts set loose a river of emotions that sends us off barking at imaginary enemies.
Yet under all of the stuff of life and its doings is a being of experience. Moment-to-moment, experience-after-experience the flow of life goes on. There is real peace in this flow of being in pure awareness of what is.
A Practice of Experiencing
Take a few minutes to slow down and bring your focus to the here and now. This is about being present to your experiences as they come up. Being present in a non-judging, non-critical way allows you to remain fully aware of one experience after another.
You can:
- Notice you body’s experience of receptivity or not.
- Notice the mind wanting to put words to these experiences. Do your best to keep the words at a minimum.
- Be aware of the emotional responses. Just be with what is.
Enjoy you as experience flowing through experience.
After the practice you can use the experiences as invitations to awareness and self-inquiry into your true nature and the ways of the cosmos.
So why does this matter to you?
It doesn’t if your life is going well and your mind is doing a super job of running your show. However if you are more like the rest of us, you know the mind can be troubling and limiting.
Experiences teamed with awareness are always providing you with expanded perspectives and new insights. If you feel stuck all you have to do is turn to the now of your experience. Soon you will have new information to redirect your life.
In the present moment there is always freshness and freedom. Fresh means new ideas and inspiration are available right now. Freedom because you are not tied to the old beliefs and ideas that got you into the pickle you are in.
Free to expand into new ways of freshly doing your life. What a relief that is. Experience flows anew each moment. Isn’t it wonderful to live in such an alive and dynamic way