How can we tell the difference between the Observer and Observed?.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
I learned from you 15+ years ago about the true nature of “the observer”; in meditation and life to ask, “who is doing the observing?”; and, that “that” is more our real “self”.
At a time in my life when things are going very well for me (health is good, finances good, job stable), I have found when I empathize with others’ pain , that I have trouble delineating between the observer and the observed, a painful thought for the first time in years.
For example, a friend is having a very hard time in life and it feels more to me that my “observer” is feeling his pain. I have trouble just noticing the pain I feel for others. I don’t know if this makes sense to you or if you have a comment. To reinforce a point, my personal life is quite blissful, I’m just experiencing a shift where I can’t tell the observer from the observed as readily. Thank you for helping me.
Response:
That sense of separation between the observer within and the observed outside is only a temporary state of consciousness that is necessary in order to establish the experience of the true self independent of experience. Up until then, one’s sense of self was mixed in with every mental, emotional and sensory experience.
When the observer becomes aware of its own nature separate from what it observes, only then does it truly know itself. But that is not the end goal of awakening.
This state of established selfhood now needs to reintegrate with normal life experience, and this happens through the heart. Love and compassion are the impulses of life that pull that silent observer back into the thick of everyday life. This is what is happening to you. It’s no longer important to uphold a distinction between the observer and observed.
You know who you are now, and your job is to bring that presence of self, light and bliss into your world, just as you are doing.
Love,
Deepak
