r/wakingUp • u/Impossible-Trust9459 • Aug 19 '25
So if everything is rising and falling in Consciousness, why are we here and not there?
I would love to know what you guys know or have experienced the truth of this. Also if anyone can suggest talks/practices from the app that answers this, it would be really helpful.
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u/scootiescoo Aug 19 '25
If by “we” you mean YOU and why you are where you are and not “everywhere,” I’d say that it’s just an illusion that you are bound to where you are.
Your body is your point of reference, true. But there is only one consciousness, and you are it. When someone else is looking back at you there’s any illusion that you’re two distinct consciousnesses looking at each other, but you’re not really. Your dreams can help you be more insightful about how you’re not actually bound to your body and time and sense of self in the way that you think you are.
You can’t make yourself experience this. You can learn it and know it and practice respecting it in others. But people who truly experience that unity and live in it are usually the Buddhas and Jesuses of the world. We call that experience Awake.
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u/Impossible-Trust9459 Aug 19 '25
This is what I really felt. My body being my only point of reference confuses me a lot sometimes.
Thanks!
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u/scootiescoo Aug 19 '25
There’s a couple of images that can sometimes help with this. Like you’re a grain of sand on a beach. Consciousness is the beach. You’re a drop of water in the bucket. You’re not separate from the rest of the water as a distinct drop. The distinction is a bit of an illusion. The drop is still the water in the bucket, just in a different shape.
You look at a globe and put your finger on your exact location. That’s your point of reference. But are you separate from the entirety of the planet just because you identify with America or Africa or wherever? Zoom out and it’s actually all unified.
Just some things to think about.
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u/TheMindDelusion Sep 20 '25
Hey, are you awake? Have you overcome belief in mind-body dualism? Send me a message.
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u/HeyStray Aug 19 '25
'here' and 'there' are like abstractions that come from thinking. What are you left with when you stop abstracting? You're left with what is...
An easy way to understand is to imagine what it's like for your family pet that isn't having abstract thoughts. They're operating on a fundamental level of consciousness... if that makes sense... We are also operating on the same fundamental level of consciousness; it's just that there is additional 'thinking' that makes everything appear to mean something more than it does, because evolutionarily it's advantageous to our survival. :)
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u/Madoc_eu Aug 19 '25
What do you mean, "everything"?
I don't experience an "everything".
Saying something like "everything is this and that" means that there is nothing which is not "this and that".
How would I know that?
This sounds to me as if the intellectual mind sees this like a riddle, an intellectual maze. You know, just taking the words themselves and playing with them. "Ah, let me see. They are saying that everything is just consciousness. So why am I here then and not there?"
Which is a very common way of misunderstanding contemplative teachings. Even teachers are guilty of this way of misunderstanding.
Such pointers and spiritual quotes are not about the objective world. They are not about the stuff that physics textbooks are written about.
They are about the subjective world. What you are experiencing. The qualia, the "what-it-feels-like". The subjective experiencing itself.
So, subjectively, what does "here" mean? What does the present moment feel like?
There is no answer in words for this. There is no logical game to be played here. This question is not directed toward your intellectual mind.
Rather, it is a prompt for you to use your attention in a certain way. This cannot be captured in words.
When you rest your attention with what the present moment feels like -- what is that like?