We didn’t always have a Sense of Self: infants are born without it and exist for months in a state thought-free awareness.
The infant is born conscious but without an “I” there is no internal “me” or external “you”. Without a sense of self there is nothing to separate inner or outer, nothing to differentiate me from you. This is pure consciousness where only oneness exists.
This original state doesn’t last for too long. After a few months the Sense of Self begins to develop and creates the way we normally experience the world.
Pure consciousness becomes buried beneath the sense of self and is no longer accessible. Most adults will never experience it again.
Fortunately it’s possible to re-experience pure consciousness by practising the spiritual enquiry exercise detailed in the following pages.
This significant spiritual state has been known about for millennia: Patanjali, the Indian sage, wrote about it 2000 years ago (see Extras) and called it the essence of spirituality.
Experiencing pure consciousness, even for brief periods, has a cumulative effect on the human organism and creates an organic sense of inner peace and happiness that’s the subject of this brief guide.
Spiritual enquiry
Stumbling into it
Some extras
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