Why giving expression to deeper layers of your being requires letting go of your idea of personality and connect with your witnessing self.
"Who looks outside dreams. Who looks inside awakens.“ – Carl G. Jung
One of the most profound questions mankind has asked itself throughout history is the question of its true identity: Who am I? It is a fundamental truth found in all cultures and all times that we seek to discover ourselves and understand our own nature. Our highest aspirations and our deepest failures are related to the knowledge of, and even more so, our belief of who or even what we think we are.
Most people would spontaneously answer that question with their name, nationality, age, physical shape or profession. More reflected individuals rather respond with certain personality traits such as being outgoing, organized, empathetic or creative – those typical answers given in a job interview.
Those who are more evolved in their spiritual practice point out that the real “Self” is our consciousness, or in different words, the entity that observes our thoughts and emotions. Others go even a step further and see the Self as an immortal entity, also referred to as soul or spirit, that is connected to and influenced by other planes, transcending time and space and working its way through different bodies and lifespans to fulfill its mission to become fully liberated and ascend to the ultimate heaven.
Layers of Being
Regardless of our personal beliefs around that, we can at least agree that our “Self” has got different layers, and that we all have the ability to bring our attention and awareness to those different parts of our ourselves by simply shifting our perspective. The question then is: “Which part of us is actually shifting the perspective?”.
For this purpose, it’s useful to differentiate between consciousness and awareness. Whilst there are different views on that, I believe that the most helpful one is to see consciousness as an empty canvas, where the painting’s forms and colors represents the sensory impressions, emotions, thoughts and more subtle perceptions in our life. In that metaphor, awareness would be the lens of a camera that moves between the different parts of the painting, zooming in and out and trying different angles.
A few month ago, I completed a 6 weeks teachers training in holistic Hatha Yoga and sound healing. We spent hundreds of hours in different forms of meditative states, physical Yoga practice, breathing exercises, chanting, meditations, affirmations, rituals and philosophical debate. I had the chance to observe and understand the different layers of my Self (called “Koshas” in Yogic philosophy) better than ever before.
Where I could previously merely feel the quality of my muscles, tendons and bones and maybe my dripping sweat, I started feeling and even consciously influencing the quality of my breath, the quality of my gaze, the quality of my skin, the quality of my mind and the quality of my emotions.
I could experience first-hand how all these layers are interconnected, interwoven with fine fabrics, creating something that I can best describe as a “symphony of consciousness”. And as the various Yoga practices help reducing the usual activities of the “chattering chimpanzee that sits in our head”, we can perceive and appreciate an increasing number of instruments that are being played by that orchestra. What a blissful journey!
Thinking and Witnessing Self
In a simplified and very practical way, we can differentiate between the thinking and the witnessing Self, between form and formless, between the words on the paper and the white paper itself. As long as we are not used to switch between these two modes, we are exclusively identified with our thoughts and believe that this is actually who we are.
As long as we are following Descartes’ famous quote “I think, therefore I am” and herewith obey to the dominance of the mental layer, we miss out on fully understanding, evolving and appreciating the physical, emotional, energetic and intuitive layers of our being. We are so much more than our thoughts!
“We are so much more than our thoughts!”
The limits of self-inquiry
The truth is, however ambitious we are on our spiritual path, no matter how many workshops we attend, how many books we read or journal pages we write, we will never be able to fully comprehend or even verbalize this highly complex entity called Self. In fact, we are quite limited and heavily biased in the way we perceive and make sense of ourselves.
We have this very human tendency to portray ourselves as how we want to be seen or as how we think significant others expect us to be, depending on the various roles we take in our life, and as long as we are humans we won’t get rid of it. As the philosopher Alan Watts said: “Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”
“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”
― Alan W. Watts
So what?
We don’t need to meditate for years and years to integrate that switch button into our daily life that allows us to connect more deeply with ourselves. We can switch into “witness mode” anytime and just become the observer of whatever is happening.
Make it a habit to spend 5 minutes of your day reflecting on the following questions:
Which thoughts are running through my head?
What kind of feelings and emotions am I encountering?
What kind of sensations do I feel in my body?
How is my breath moving in and out?
What kind of sounds do I hear?
How do I feel energetically?
This exercise sounds simple, but is not easy at all, as the thinking mind wants to take over again and again. Try to witness without trying to change anything. You will see that this is a very though thing to do, as the mind is used to create, plan, do something.
Just witnessing means being in a state of attentive passivity, in a state of listening, receiving and letting go, so that deeper layers of our being can unfold.
In this symphony of consciousness, we are not only each single instrument that is being played, but also each single instrument player, the conductor, the audience and the director of the orchestra. Try to change seats as often as possible.
Do you feel the desire to dive deeper into your mindfulness practice and journey of personal transformational? Get in touch with me and book a free coaching session.