In my teens and for a couple of decades, I was passionate about systems views, holarchies, integral models, Taoism, Buddhism, Christian mysticism, and so on.
Why? Because these views matched my experience. They fit what was revealed in the oneness shift when I was sixteen.
ONENESS SHIFT
The consciousness I am woke up to itself. It happened on a winter day when this human self was walking along the gravel road to our house, looking up at the starry sky and with a big wind going through it all.
To myself, I am consciousness, and the world as it appears to me happens within and as the consciousness I am. This consciousness, and the experience of the world, is what mystics across cultures and through time have described, often cloathed in the language of their culture, time, and tradition.
The consciousness I am is one, it’s a seamless whole. The experience of time and space happens within it, any ideas of boundaries happen within it. And so on.
WORLDVIEWS
So it makes sense that I explored worldviews and approaches that, as much as possible, match this oneness I find myself as.
First, it was systems views through Fritjof Capra’s The Turning Point, and I also loved Taoism. Later, I explored Buddhism since that’s what I could find, and I also explored the Christian mystics and mystics from anywhere and any time.
I find that my worldviews mirror me, and really ANY worldview is a mirror for me. I can find what it points to here. It seems that any story from within any worldview is something I can turn around to apply to myself and find examples of how it’s true.
In my case, the worldviews I resonate with clearly mirror me. They mirror the oneness I find myself as, although they are all quite imperfect as well. They are the beginnings of worldviews that far better can reflect oneness and the immense simplicity and complexity of oneness.
WE ARE INEVITABLY CONSCIOUSNESS
When the shift first happened, my human self interpreted it in terms of God. All of existence without exception was revealed as consciousness, Spirit, God, and so on. The nature of all is consciousness and God. God seems to want to explore itself in as many different ways as possible, and one of those ways is by temporarily and locally taking the form of this human self, and even – for a while – taking itself to fundamentally be this human self.
These days, I like to explore (what I think of as) the small view on awakening which essentially says the same but frames it slightly differently.
Here are some points:
(I) No matter what, to ourselves we inevitably are consciousness. No matter what we fundamentally are from some outside third-person worldview, we have to be consciousness to ourselves. Consciousness is not some kind of appendix or add-on in our own first-person experience.
(II) We can find ourselves as consciousness. We can most easily find it through pointers and guided looking, for instance through the Big Mind process or the Headless experiments.
(III) The world, as it appears to us, happens within and as the consciousness we are. That too is inevitable. The world, to us, is consciousness, whether we notice or not.
(IV) I can’t say anything for certain about the nature of all of existence. I can say something about my own nature, as it appears to me, but I don’t know if the nature of all of existence is the same as my nature. It has to appear that way since it, to me, happens within and as the consciousness I am. but I don’t know for certain. This opens for compatibility with a range of worldviews from materialism to seeing the whole of existence as consciousness, Spirit, and God.
(V) The big view of awakening is certainly also possible. The nature of all of existence may well be the same as my nature, it may all be consciousness taking what we experience as material forms.
(VI) The small and big views on awakening are complementary. They are compatible, fill each other in, and I like to find fluidity between the views. The small is honest, sober, and compatible with a range of worldviews including materialism. The big is inspiring, fits the language of spirituality and mystics, and is – if I am honest – more likely to be accurate in the big picture.