I had a conversation with a friend (Joe B.) yesterday. His partner was recently very ill with dengue fever, and she found herself as Spirit, or as consciousness I as would say. Something also happened with her body so she couldn’t feel her emotions. Here, she realized even more how immensely precious this life of flesh and blood is.
That’s how it is for me too. From finding myself as consciousness – as what time and space and anything happens within and as – this life of flesh and blood is revealed as even more precious.
I am relatively familiar with finding myself as consciousness. I notice it now. I have explored it for decades of this human life. There has also been many phases where my nature as consciousness has been highlighted and come into the foreground even more strongly. It happens during health crises, for instance when I had a septic shock a couple of years ago. I remember the existence between lives. I had an out-of-body experience early in life. It came strongly into the foreground for years after the initial oneness shift, and also after the no-self shift some years ago.
As consciousness, as my more fundamental nature, I am timeless and spaceless and apparently not dependent on this body. That’s wonderful and amazing and endlessly intriguing.
This also reveals this human self as infinitely precious. He is fleeting. He is local. He is one of many. He feels, tastes, smells, hears, and more. He can stub his toe and feel pain. He enjoys good food, the breeze, sunsets and sunrises, touch. He sometimes feels at the mercy of life. He has hopes and desires. He has fears and traumas. He gets overwhelmed. He learns to navigate life as best he can.
All of that is so immensely precious. It’s precious because it is so rare and fleeting. Nobody and nothing like him has ever existed and will never exist again. He is one of a kind. He is a blip in the history of the universe.
Every single being is immensely precious for this reason. This living planet is one of a kind. It too is fleeting. It too will be completely gone.
CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE FLEETING NATURE OF ALL EXPERIENCE
Finding ourselves as consciousness, we also find a new and heightened appreciation for this fleeting human life.
The reverse is also the case.
Through noticing and getting familiar with the fleeting nature of all content of experience, we can more easily find ourselves as consciousness. That’s one of the reasons basic meditation can help us, over time, to notice our nature. Through basic meditation, we viscerally get that all content of experience comes and goes, including anything we take as who we are and any ideas about who or what we are. That means I cannot fundamentally be any of that. So what am I more fundamentally? Although this is mostly a visceral process that unfolds over time, it can be supported by more intentional inquiry.
WHEN WE DEVALUE THIS LIFE
Some devalue this life or human life in general. To me, that looks like a trauma response. We experience a lot of pain and suffering, want to escape that suffering, and we think the way to do it is to distance ourselves from this human self. In the most extreme cases, a wish to avoid suffering takes the form of wishing to end this life.
Some in the non-dual world do this too. They seem to devalue or dismiss this human life. Here too, it’s likely a trauma response, and it likely comes from getting caught up in certain unexamined painful stories.
If we live from noticing what we are, from finding ourselves as consciousness, it seems natural and inevitable to value this precious fleeting life.
The image is from the sunset when this topic came up in conversation yesterday.