Unlocked Door of our Solitary Confinement

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

Where am I in all this writing?  I fear I am at the center.

How does one take the little self out of the center of one’s thoughts? 

Obviously one must fill the consciousness with something else.

Consciousness will role on, will incessantly fill the mind, thoughts and ideas and perspectives and imaginations and dreams and views will flow and fill and overflow.

One starts with the little self as the only reference for thought.  The little self fills all awareness and reference and perspective.  This will remain so until one allows entry of something(s) larger.

In the relentless flow of thoughts and awareness and consciousness all perspective will be centered about the little self unless the personal consciousness dances with Greater Consciousness.

The little self dancing alone eventually leads to hopelessness and despair, for the little self dances in solitary confinement.  That is why we race to fill our senses with experiences and sensations.  Anything, anything at all, drugs, pain, tattoos, sports, violence, sex, travel, bright lights, possessing materials, shopping, buying, consuming, eating, eating, eating, all provide the illusion of escape, the illusion of something external to our little self, all distracting from the isolation of the self.

The mind will not stop, the flow of thoughts will not stop, and the soul still trapped in the little self must bring sensations and experiences into orbit about the little self.  The jewelry and the score, the makeup and the victory, all orbit about the little self, but do nothing to penetrate the solitary isolation.

The thoughts will come, the thoughts are relentless, the mind will not stop except when we briefly drown it in drugs and alcohol. 

The thoughts will not stop, the little self is isolated and solitary…….which eventually, against our will and plans, brings us to consider, to timidly approach, to cautiously sample, conscious experience outside our self.  Something greater……something out there……maybe genuine discernment of the living Nature around us……maybe a flicker of empathy allowing entry of what another human being is experiencing…..maybe a hesitant foray into meditation or prayer or contemplation of something unsettlingly greater.

In those moments, with awareness and consciousness still unstoppably flowing, we are finally not alone in that consciousness.  We have cracked the unlocked door on the cell of our solitary confinement. 

Our thoughts and plans and experiences still orbit about the little self, but now the orbits are eccentric, stretched, erratic, for finally they are starting to incorporate someone or something else.  A cat, a plant, a friend, a God, something else begins to matter along with our self.  Plan and perspectives are a bit broader, unfolding to incorporate something or someone else’s needs. 

The self is growing, not from its own isolated resources, but from incorporation of boundless resources outside the self.  Little self is growing into its potential Self.

Concepts like “joy” and “beauty” and “meaning”, words meaningless to the small self, now blossom. 

The little self has stepped out of its cell of security to accept the embrace of the Source of Light that was always shining through the cracks and gaps of the flimsy door of our cell.

Copyright 2016 Don Ray
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