Realising the Narrow Scope of My Awareness
Lately, I’ve noticed something unsettling: my field of consciousness feels incredibly narrow – like a pinlight in a vast dark room.
I have no idea if this is how it is for others. It’s not exactly water cooler conversation material, and honestly, consciousness is a hard thing to put into words. Most of us don’t even really understand what it is.
Including me.
But the best definition I’ve found comes from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow:
“Consciousness is the complex system that has evolved in humans for selecting information… processing it, and storing it. Information appears in consciousness through the selective investment of attention. Once attended to, information enters awareness—the system encompassing all of the processes that take place in consciousness, such as thinking, willing, and feeling about this information.”
That quote resonates deeply. Especially the idea that attention shapes awareness.
Meditation and the Glimpse Beyond Thought
Through my meditation practice, I’ve begun to experience brief moments of “no-thought” consciousness. They’re fleeting—but powerful.
In those spaces, something shifts. It feels like an invitation to explore beyond the confines of the body. There’s a dissolving of edges, a soft blur between where “I” end and “everything else” begins. Or maybe those boundaries were never real to begin with.
Of course, I usually land back in the noisy thud of ego. Tangents. Thought spirals. The usual.
But the taste of that expanded state lingers.
The Universal Thread
For the past two decades, I’ve read a lot on spirituality and the ego, the shadow self, and the illusion of separateness. Again and again, it seems to come back to this: that there is just one thing. One consciousness. One universal awareness, of which we are all expressions.
What a nicer place the world would be if we truly realised that!
I’m trying to live as if this notion is true. I struggle to feel this connectedness with people, maybe because humans are burdened with the ego. But with animals, it’s different.
There’s a presence in their eyes, a spirit, that feels uncannily familiar. Like looking into a mirror with fur. The same life force.
When I saw my dad’s body in the morgue, it was crystal clear. The animating force had gone. What was left was the vehicle, his “meat suit”, used for seventy years, now empty.
If everything is indeed one, then the ego is the illusion that hides that truth. Fascinating, isn’t it, that babies don’t recognise themselves as separate until around age two? Before that, there’s just oneness. Then comes the “me”, and with it, the terrible twos.
The Ego’s Role in Addiction and Recovery
In my case, the ego led me into addiction. It drove me toward self-destruction. Recovery and the 12 Steps have helped me begin to question it.
Now, through my work with Holosync, especially since progressing to the Purification Level, I’m facing my ego in a whole new way. When I first moved up to this level, a wave of fear, darkness, and anxiety hit me. For a few days, it felt like existential dread had taken over.
What got me through it was acknowledging that these feelings were arising within me, even if I couldn’t quite grasp how or why. I’ve had similar episodes before while using Holosync, and each time, I’ve come back changed.
I’m learning to spot the ego in action. And that awareness is opening up something new.
From Pinlight to Searchlight
It struck me recently just how much of my daily consciousness is wrapped up in judging, comparing, replaying, and planning. The endless inner monologue about what this person should do, what that situation should be, what I should’ve said…
It’s a mess. We all do it.
And that mess? It’s just thought, mostly trivial and mostly self-referential. A pinlight beam dancing across the blank screen of infinite consciousness.
But here’s the exciting part: I’m beginning to feel like that beam can widen. That my meditation practice is slowly turning on a searchlight. One I didn’t even know I had.
And maybe, just maybe, the more I learn to expand that beam, the more I’ll start to see.
Leave a Reply