"The most significant thing that can happen to a human being [is] the separation process of thinking and awareness" - and the understanding that awareness is - "the space in which thoughts exist". – Eckhart Tolle
I do not disagree with Mr. Tolle but I would say that the separation of thinking and awareness is, along with being “significant”, the most healing thing that can happen to a human being.
When awareness becomes available as a silent spacious environment in which thoughts appear and disappear - without attachment - it gives the Observer, (that’s you and me), the space necessary to begin the process of disbelieving, or unraveling our thoughts….and with that comes freedom from fear, anxiety, suffering, and turbulence of all sorts and stripes.
The very first time I can remember my awareness separating from my thinking mind, was on the day of my mother’s death. As soon as I realized that the moment had come and her death was upon us, my mind became crystal clear and utterly silent. I remember afterwards trying to describe it to someone else and saying that I had never felt so alive in all my life…”that I felt like I had eyes in the back of my head, I was so present, conscious, and aware”.
Then about six years ago, it came again a moment of blinding clarity and total silence, this time I was standing in the grass looking down at my feet when suddenly my brain simply stopped speaking to me…it was electrifying and amazing.
Years passed, and then about 4 months ago a series of very distressing events, caused a kind of relapse into an old and torturous way of thinking… a pattern of thought I had not actively engaged in for more than 10 years. And I was flooded with suffering, anxiety, distress, anger, sadness and much, much more. But this flood was apparently the gateway, which stood between me and salvation, for at some point in this onslaught… I simply reached overload and had had, enough!!
Suddenly again the separation between awareness and thinking arrived, and this time it stayed…not all day and not every day. But some measure of every week there was a blissful, loving, and very silent space, or awareness, in my mind and heart. It was/is cooling, kind, loving, easy, simple and very, very, very desirable.
Soon I found that I could practice it - I needed solitude, of which I had plenty, quiet, of which I am fond…(the radio, TV, or CD’s are almost never on in my house, and never during the daylight hours), and with my eyes closed, I soon could enter this silent space at will.
With enough “practice” I no longer needed my eyes closed and then my attention could be directed to this quiet spaciousness even if I were moving about, or doing chores, or any of the many other things we are required to do in the unfolding of our day.
The best and most wonderful thing about the “separation process” of awareness and thinking, is that in this quiet space it is not possible for the conditioned mind to drag you into the future or the past, and thus the Timeless present becomes a real, full, and tangible experience.
I tell you all of this, so that I might more clearly describe for you how the wheels came off the wagon yesterday… and the difference between real, or primal, or authentic fear, and the fears born of the lies of the conditioned mind.
So let’s begin with the lie.
Yesterday, something triggered my conditioned minds habitual responses, and I was catapulted into a make-believe future of such dire circumstances, that before I could get a hold of myself…I was living in a cardboard box and eating out of cat food cans. I have no idea what the trigger was, writing checks for my monthly bills…checking my back account balance…listening to the news…I have no idea, but suddenly and quite viciously the conditioned mind had me by the throat and I was listening to myself describing quite vividly, the many ills and sorrows that were headed my way.
Because I have gone so long unable to find a job, so said my mind, “you will lose the house, not be capable of feeding yourself and your beloved animals, should anyone get sick, illness will surely turn to deadly circumstances, because there is no money for health care or medicine…and so on…and so on…and so on…
All projections into a non-existent future…and all lies…
The “What Is” truth of the moment was entirely obscured behind storm clouds that had rained in on me with the force of a hurricane. When late in the evening, I was finally able to get a hold of myself, I looked to find the What Is truth of the present moment, and once again recognized that I have all, and even more, than I need at this precise moment. More than enough to feed myself, my beloved’s, and more than enough to care for us all…
At the end of the day, I took inventory of the – now mostly unfamiliar – chemical impact of the storm that blew metaphorical trees down around my house/self. My brain felt sore and kind of stuck, my gut was upset and tight, my limbs felt heavy and hot, and I felt sticky all over, on the inside, like someone had opened up my carotid and poured molasses into my veins.
I was very tired and very listless and this is the condition in which I went to bed, for some much needed rest.
So this morning, just upon arising, I experienced the only form of fear that is truthful…or authentic.
It began with my cat, Sadie; she is a very eccentric cat.
She has a great fondness for dark and quiet spaces, no doubt the reason she chose me, to rescue her from starvation when she was a tiny and neglected and abandoned kitten. She has a strong preference for the cabinet under the sink in my master bath, but she also likes the linen closet, large drawers, and the master bedroom closet’s highest shelf. Sometimes, when I come home from being gone too long, it appears as though my house has been burgled… as every cupboard, door, and big drawer is standing open.
Believe me, the first time it happened I wanted to call strong, hairy, burly men with no necks, to search my home with flashlights before I would go in and settle down for the night. But one day, I watched her pulling on the levered door handles repeatedly, and finally successfully opening the closet door, and I realized then that the drawers and doors standing open were her doing. (She once locked me out of my house, by batting at the door handle, vigorously enough to turn the lock, while I was inside the garage using the utility sink to bathe my small dogs…she has major separation anxiety…and she wanted in that garage in the very worst way.)
I don’t know if her great fondness for us, (she loves my dogs as much as she loves me…perhaps even more…), is because she was a rescue or it’s just her native nature.
Along with her cupboard quirk, she hunts for us.
At least three times a month, and much more when she was younger, she brings her living prey into my home. In she comes with a bird, a salamander, a baby bunny rabbit, a mouse…and takes it from the dog door at the back of the house, all the way to the front of the house and into the dining room…because she knows that this is where I eat, and she wants my meal to be very, very, fresh….
From the moment she began this terribly distressing behavior, my second eldest dog, discovered that somewhere in his mixed up mutt of a gene pool…there was a grand, and commanding, and quite determined hunting dog.
And out of his mouth comes a bark that would be worthy of the hounds of hell. This bark exists at no other time and in no other circumstances, it has the quality of a drunken mountain of a man bellowing at a referee whose call he disagrees with, to the point of someone dying over it. It is throaty, harsh, insistent, demanding, and could wake the dead.
The first time I heard it, was three o’clock in the morning, and it nearly threw me bodily from my bed. At this stage in our family life, I am so conditioned to it, that I know if I get up immediately and run to the dining room…I can save whatever has been brought in. If I hesitate at all, my hound from hell, will have killed it before I can get there. (Apparently Sadie’s sensibilities are such, that she would rather the dog do the heavy lifting.)
So you can imagine, that this morning, when the bellowing began while I was having my morning constitutional and could not get up immediately to run to the dining room, that my long hesitation was somewhat disturbing. This “catch and release” program we have going on in my house, relies entirely on the speed with which I react…otherwise we are having a small funeral, rather than a…yippee!!! we got away clean, celebration.
So as soon as I was able, I went into the dining room to see what manner of small creature hopefully still needed my help…only to find…(please forgive the politically incorrect idiom), a Mexican standoff of Epic Proportions…
Sadie, in languid cat mode, stretched out to one side watching beloved dog…. And…. baby-brown-diamond-back-rattlesnake, standoff.
Yes, that’s right, I said……. OMG!!! SNAKE!!!!!!!!
COMPLETE WITH FANGS, COILING, HISSING, STRIKING, AND RATTLING….
I am sure my dog is not dead as I write this, because of the hissing and rattling…and maybe even the striking, because that was surely the most remarkable aspect of this tiny but furiously violent reptile. It was about the circumference of my little finger, and perhaps 14 inches long, new to the world without doubt, but not lacking in skill, or commitment, or aim, or determination…one tiny iota. (I have no explanation for how Sadie caught and transported this deeply upset baby into our home, while also successfully evading being bitten.)
The dog would bark and lunge, and the rattler would rear up and strike… hissing and rattling all the while…and fear overtook me like a bullet train.
I ran to the kitchen and came back with a pair of salad tongs…(!!!SALAD TONGS!!! really)…and each time I tried to reach out and grasp it’s head, it lunged and hissed and rattled at me. But better me, than my small dog, should those tiny fangs find purchase…I would get sick no doubt…but my beloved dog would most likely die.
By this point, real…not imagined…FEAR, had so overtaken me that my muscles began the Samba against my bones. I had no faith what-so-ever, that should I succeed in capturing his bobbing and weaving head, that I would be capable of hanging onto his 6 or 8 ounces of weight, successfully. And should he be dropped on the way out the door, and absent my noisy an determined dog keeping him corralled, and slither under the furniture…I would have to wear knee high boots the rest of my life…or sell the house, one of the two.
Just then my brain came back online, and I noticed a fairly large clear plastic lid sitting nearby…I grabbed it up and dropped it down on top of the weaving, coiled creature…I then placed a heavy weight onto the impromptu cage so that he would not be capable of slithering from underneath it, and went outside to look for a large, burly, hairy, no-neck MAN. Yes, ladies, I am not ashamed to admit it…I wanted some help…and I wanted it right now!!!
As I glanced around my cul-de-sac, I realized that it was too early to try that one and that one, and to late for that one and that one - who work nights. I then contemplated animal rescue, (the last time I called them for a dog I had rescued from the streets…they said, “sometime tomorrow…maybe”), so then I thought about those lovely men who reside just down the street from my subdivision who run into burning buildings, while everyone else is running out.
But finally, with breath returning to my body, and the Samba’s refrain not quite as determined…I decided to deal with this thing on my own. Back inside I went, and looking for something that would act as a carrying case, I found another clear plastic container - a juice pitcher - that I thought I could scoop him up in and use to toss him over the fence, and back into the desert with. The clear plastic part was essential, as every time I moved toward him, he struck his impromptu cage with such force that a small but clear thump could be heard, even over my still barking dog…and I wanted to see those strikes, not just hear them.
It took me several tries and a good deal of additional adrenaline, (the Samba had returned and brought with it several flamingo dancers - and a rumba for good measure), until finally, I was able to get him into the “carrier” and slap a lid on it. Once outside, I threw him over the fence, and into a freedom we both wanted with our whole heart and soul.
I had been preparing for my five-day-a-week-walking routine, when all this brouhaha had happened, and for some odd reason decided to continue with my plan before the day got to hot to do so. It took almost the entire 45 minutes, for the muscles in my legs to stop shivering, and calm down. The minute I made it back to my house, I went straight to bed…I did not collect 200 dollars, go to jail, or stop to buy a house for Park Place… in point-of-fact, I barely managed to unleash my dogs before I collapsed on my bed.
Here is what I discovered…real fear is hot, intense, clarifying, and in some strange way, I can’t really describe, it is also cleansing. It’s as if the adrenaline burns up carbon dioxide, as it courses thru your system, leaving behind very real exhaustion, of course, but no “stickiness” what-so-ever. It comes, serves, intensifies, clarifies the need for action, provides the tools by which that action can take place, (and the necessary courage I might add), and moves on and out. Leaving you weak and tired, but not sick and sad and haunted.
My conclusion…EVERY form of fear that is not occasioned by a real and intense threat to your in-the-moment-physical survival, or that of a loved one, is imagined, illusory, deceptive, false, erroneous and just a plain ole lie…
And here is the reason that awareness must separate from thinking if we are ever to overcome the imaginary fears, that fuel our wars, our discord, our dis-ease, our dissonance, and our discomfort.
We must then come to the place of inquiry…is it your responsibility to discover the space within? Does the very existence of humanity rely on your doing part of the “heavy lifting”? Do you want real change, or merely the continuing search for change? Or as the poet Rumi said, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.”
May you find your way to becoming the “space” in which your thoughts arise, rather than the deeply mistaken belief, that you are the thoughts that your conditioned mind throws up - to see if you will take the bait.
I wish you well on this journey of a lifetime…of the revelation of your one true and real self…the space from which all knowable things take their existence. May you find this space inside yourself before the crowded and conditioned mind, overtakes the flight of your soul and spirit, and may you be blessed by freedom.
(PS Out of curiosity, and to find out how much danger my dog had really been in…I asked this question of Wiki Answers: Is venom from a baby rattlesnake more poisonous than a mature rattlesnake?
The Answer:
The venom of a baby rattlesnake is the same as a full-grown rattlesnake. The reason it seems more "toxic" is because they can’t control the amount of venom they pump out, the way an adult snake can, actually all rattlesnakes have hemotoxin and neurotoxin included in their venom. Baby rattlesnakes, however, contains mostly neurotoxin, and little hemotoxin. It's the neurotoxin that can be fatal. Hemotoxin is used to break down tissue, and aids in the digestive process. Yes, the baby rattler has been equipped with a higher dose of venom because of its size for survival reasons.) ….Good Lord…
Adayre R. Miller
8/26/10
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