Many years ago a strange and beautiful bird flew into my garden. It was attacked by the Magpies and, in its desperate flight to escape, it flew straight into the glass of my window, created a loud noise which was what drew my attention to it, and it fell to the garden below.
I watched it and could see that it was stunned but still breathing. After a good five minutes it stirred, looked about and groggily flew to a nearby TreeFern where it nestled into the fronds and disappeared.
It didn’t really disappear but its plumage was so artfully contrived that - as soon as it went absolutely still - you really couldn’t see it unless you knew it was there. I watched some more and it remained absolutely still and completely camouflaged, within the fronds of the TreeFern, where it remained a quarter of an hour and then flew away.
I took a photo. It’s large bird. The photo sits on a wall and all see the TreeFern but no-one sees the bird unless I point it out. Understandable - you wouldn’t expect to see such a thing.
I’m listening at the moment to a zen radio talk and wondering quite how to move from this bird story and into what this writing is really about. Just as I pause so the interviewer is mentioning Carlos Castaneda and I realise that it’s a perfect way in which to transition.
Whether I’m a human being having a spiritual experience or a spiritual being having a human experience doesn’t much matter. I’m an awareness.
There are two articles running on zen’s site at the same time. Both come from a base which recognises that we are spiritual beings and both recognise that we have soul. In one, the message is positive and carries nothing with which I’d disagree. The other is about soul catching nets. A lie as far as I’m concerned.
Yet the lie gains more attention than the truth.
I have got something to share which is full of implication. Might make some uneasy but shouldn’t.
A truly remarkable, other worldly experience doesn’t happen without
an internal shake up happening at the same time. My aboriginal experience was profound and immediate but in the few moments prior to it something equally as profound occurred. Something stirred, shifted and settled.
I became aware of the witness and will need to expand on this.
Within a few moments an understanding took place. What do I mean by witness? It’s not a witness in any human sense of the word. Neither is it alien or something to be feared. Its only function and purpose is to record each moment and record it in its totality. It doesn’t judge, it just faithfully records everything. My anguish, my joy, my perception within each moment.
Nothing dies. At the end of this life, the witness aspect of my soul goes with it as does the perfect record of this life.
I don’t think it gets read out in some heavenly version of a human court where, here on Earth, it’s easy to play with such approaches as ...’Just give me the facts.’ The facts come with multiple attachments which rarely get mentioned in a human court even though they’re relevant.
The witness aspect within me doesn’t lie. It doesn’t have a capacity for truth, lies or judgement. It just records and I stress this because it matters.
‘Don’t you get bored?’ I briefly mused at some later date. But, of course, it doesn’t. It doesn’t have that capacity.
But it did have the capacity to be surprised, to have some sense of ‘Better sit up and take notice.’ I don’t know that, of course, but, on my way to a Dreaming, something very briefly stirred within myself and an understanding of the function of the witness was formed.
There’s nothing to fear about the witness anymore than there’s anything to fear about the cup in front of me.
That it exists is plenty of food for thought, none of it fearful.
We have our own experiences upon which we draw. When I say that I don’t know much, it’s not self depreciation or modesty but a recognition of my state in which what I DO know is the ‘tried and true’ important bits. Do your best, take heart .... if I’m doing that and you’re doing that then this current fascination with death and fear and trembling holds no power. Neither should it.
I’m reluctant to write about ‘My Spiritual Diary.’ .. because I don’t have one. What’s really matters to me is not my few profound experiences but learning how to love, to appreciate.
I like awe, reverence, the vastness of it all.
I appreciate that my understanding about this witness aspect to our beings could be read as supposition, but it’s part of what I’ve gleaned from my own experience and is as valid to share as perspectives from other sources.