Upon reflection in meditation or other forms of introspective awareness, all forms (appearances within 3D) can be seen as ultimately sense impressions existing within awareness and thus they have no external reality of their own.
One can understand that the body itself is a cluster of sense impressions existing inside awareness and thus is ultimately nothing other than an idea – a thought construct.
Going deeper in awareness and meditation, one can be left with the notion that the one that is having the idea – the ‘I’ – is also an idea as well!
So we must (if we want Truth) investigate in greater detail the experience of the ‘I’ in order to understand its true nature and who we really are at a fundamental level. It is necessary to have a solid grounding and strong conditions for spiritual practice in order to go deeper with this self-inquiry, simply because the results of it may well present one with a direct awareness of the very insubstantial nature of the ‘I’, despite its apparent persistent nature!
Questions one can reflect upon include the following:-
What is this self-identity? Where does it come from? What is its inherent nature?
Is it substantial and enduring? Is it subject to change?
Most students who pursue this line of inquiry and remain open to what is shown will at some point conclude that the ‘I’ is in fact an idea and thus the one that is having this earthly experience is no more real or no more real than a thought!
One can fall into the trap of placing a lot of importance on ourselves as a whole and the ‘I’ is usually heavily identified with the body, but self-importance is the nemesis of any kind of spiritual advancement as well as the cause of many karmas that lead to endless incarnations in 3D space-time. Those who have enough astral energy to move their ‘assemblage point’ or ‘standard resting point of awareness’ (more in Voyager) – will be able to separate the awareness of the ‘I’ thought-form from the thought-form of the body and effect a degree of ego-transcendence, the key to Spiritual Mastery, and see beyond 3D space-time.
At that point, one will understand beyond any doubt that the ‘I’ is not physical at all but rather is an identity associated with our current body and mind as well as emotions. There are two parts of the ‘I’ idea – part of it is bound up in the body identity (namely one thinks one IS the body, but that fact can be found to be false upon deeper reflection) and the other part is bound up in the immaterial mind (the thinking aspect of our self-identity).
Both aspects ultimately exist only in the idea or thought-form we know as ‘I’ and neither aspect is part of our Ultimate Nature – which remains hidden beyond these two aspects (body and mind). The idea of a real, permanent and fixed ‘I’ has become identified with the thought-form of the body and thus the ‘I’ believes it has a real and true identity as an individual person, this is an illusion from the perspective of Ultimate Truth.
The ‘I’ has a relative identity to the body – ie for all intents and purposes in this ordinary physical reality we do have an experience of being an individual – and can operate and function as such – but ultimately, our physical body here does not belong to an ‘I’ of any kind.
This can be understood simply by paying attention to dreams. We can appear to have the experience of a self-identity in dreams, yet our physical body is at rest. In addition, the ‘I’ that we appear to have in dreams can sometimes be associated with a different body, or a manifestation of what looks like our same waking body with some enhancements (flying, teleporting, shape-shifting, etc).
Thus the awareness of the ‘I’ idea is not fixed to this physical body here. If that is so, then it naturally follows that the body is not our true self-identity. It is a set of thought-forms that manifest as a physical body – or at least a physical body that appears to be a physical body but we are not ultimately our bodies.
They are karmic vehicles and nothing more. Ultimately, the body is nothing other than an idea that the ‘I’ idea can associate with – but it does not need the body in order to exist.
One may wonder what may happen to the ‘I’ identity after death?
How enduring is it? What reincarnates – is it the ‘I’ or the awareness that can hold the manifestation of an ‘I’ idea? If the ‘I’ is nothing other than an idea – in what does that idea exist?
If that idea ceases to exist in awareness, what happened to that self-identity? Where did it go?
Can it reappear again in the same form?
These are helpful questions to reflect upon in meditation or during contemplative activities because the most useful answers are non-conceptual – ie beyond intellectual understanding. The answers gleaned may illuminate one to Higher Truth. One can only truly understand the mystery of the ‘I’ idea from outside of it – in the same way the eye cannot see itself!
By learning how to be in a direct state of awareness/perception/understanding beyond the ‘I’ idea – the ‘I’ idea becomes weakened temporarily and one’s awareness is freed up from it. This is known as transcending the ego and upon transcending the ego, one experiences the awareness of a Higher / Greater Universal Mind or Awareness that is our true nature.
One may think that the ‘I’ and awareness are one and the same. The paradoxical truth is that they are and they are not. In higher reality – something can be true and false simultaneously.
It can be helpful to understand the ‘I’ idea as a superficial manifestation of awareness. It is a thought existing in awareness. As awareness is ultimately the only reality, the ‘I’ must also be fundamentally nothing other than awareness. Yet it is not the same type of awareness as thought-free awareness. The ‘I’ idea is a thought manifesting from awareness but not pure awareness in itself. It is an idea existing in awareness.
It is a part of awareness but not all of it. It is the process of thinking itself that splits pure awareness / higher reality into fractured and separate lower realities. It is one’s karma and soul blueprint (existing within the awareness of Source itself) that will determine what realm one will ‘think oneself into’.
In reality, Source is reincarnating each day upon awakening by recreating the thought form of the body which then ‘calls to it’ the ‘I‘ identity to reside within it. Such a process is pretty much instantaneous and thus it is not ordinarily perceivable. The only way to break the cycle of reincarnating here is to ‘unthink the body’ that gives rise to the experience of a resident ‘I’ idea and to directly perceive the reality beyond, and become stable in that awareness (the Transcendent). This requires a lot of karmic processing, purification and the deconstruction of the entire ego-concept that continues to perpetuate conditioned (3D ) reality.
For some, that reality beyond 3D is perceived as a realm of loving ET’s or a deeper awareness of the Universe, manifestations of the awareness of one’s Higher Dimensional Astral Body and the Higher Planes. One may become aware of astral-space, other worlds, other planets, ET’s or other astral phenomena.
All these experiences manifest from the worlds beyond ego, beyond 3D body, beyond physical reality. One can inquire as to what that reality actually is and why it appears after working with the awareness of the collapse and transcending the karmas of the ego.
The body is the result of all previous thoughts, actions, emotions and karmic blueprints. All those aforementioned factors create a karmic cause for a body to be thought up and an individualized self-identity in order to inhabit it.
We may think and even perceive that the body gives rise to an ‘I’, but in reality, the ‘I’ thought comes first – the body second. Without an ‘I’ thought there is no cause for a body to be thought into existence and without a desire to incarnate here – there is no cause for Source to manifest itself as an individual being here.
The primal cause for the arising of the ‘I’ idea is the karmic blueprint that exists within Source Awareness.
Once one can dissolve that karmic blueprint, the cause for individualization in this reality is dissolved and one would then be free to incarnate elsewhere. It is not necessary to die in order to facilitate this, although Physical Ascension is a rare path, it is far more common to exit the reincarnational cycle and ascend, after death, if one is at the end of one’s journey through the Karmic Wheel.
Upon incarnation elsewhere into a higher realm – a new ‘I’ idea is born, albeit a more subtle one. For as long as one individualizes anywhere – on any plane – even on planes very close to Source, there will always be the idea of an ‘I’. It is not inherently real in itself yet is a necessary part of functioning in any reality other than Pure Source. The closer the realm is to Source, the more subtle is the ‘I’ idea – but it will be there nevertheless. Thus the idea is to transcend and see beyond the ‘I’ thought, rather than to try and destroy it.
The trap is for ones awareness to become totally identified with this ‘I’ idea and thus to see it as the only reality. Once one has done that, one has in essence sown the karmic seeds for entrapment here in 3D – for no other reality is perceivable or even knowable from within the ‘I’ idea and that ‘I’ idea can spin the Karmic Wheel for aeons.
In terms of Ascension, most forget that the body is a product of thought and thus has been created by one’s own mind. It follows then, in order to ascend – one must free the mind and become free from excessive thoughts because thoughts keep affirming physical reality.
Upon transcendence of thought – the body will then undergo a transmutation to align itself to the new reality that the mind is aware of. But one cannot ascend a body without freeing the mind from 3D reality first and by dislodging the ‘I’ idea from being solely identified with this reality. Those who can loosen the ‘I’ construct from the body will find their ‘I’ idea takes a different form.
It becomes more transparent, flexible and expansive. A part of that ‘I’ idea will always have some connection here for as long as one is incarnated here – but it will also permit the awareness of other realms beyond the ‘I’ to shine through. For some time one will remain in a body, but reality will be markedly different. One will also have a very large amount of awareness and perceive an inner luminosity not perceivable before, this is the Transcendent Reality.
Spiritual Master Free Spirit