You get to the point where language fails awareness and consciousness. Language is a bridge between rationality and irrationality, and using language to answer questions is usually a waste of time because the questions, cloaked in language as they are, seldom ask real things. This experience of being alive: what is it? I can't think of any way that language can actually answer that. Instead, I want to observe what I've learnt about energy, another elusive word that's become the go-to for many holistic practitioners.
Energy, vibration, biocentrism, chi, the field, and many more is what we're part of, we're told. And it's not remote. It's here, now, infinite, eternal, and it's the "me" that is the central register of my experience and all experience for that matter. What that means to me is that a continuum of experience is possible. Let's play a little.
Organic energy relates to the experience of being a whole, alive body with senses working well, piecing and placing habits, norms, expectations and values in terms of what is perceived and felt. This level of energy plays sport, eats out, drives a car, captains a craft, works during the day, converses and creates much. It's where our conscious minds work, mostly. Choice is multifarious at this level.
We're less conscious of molecular energy: when the body becomes ill or damaged, our attention goes to this level, and suffers there until health is restored. By the same token, we can indeed focus our attention to this level by becoming aware of what's in the stomach, the intestines, the movement of blood, what occurs at the alveoli, what is blocked or enhanced in neurotransmission. Smokers and heavy drinkers should be able to reflect awarenesses like these. Choice is not practised as much at this level, because we do not habitually go there.
Atomic energy: can we go there? We're not taught to think like that, but I suggest that the continuum from consciousness to unconsciousness is falsely worded. We know about being awake, day-dreaming, lucid dreaming, REM dreaming, being comatose and my view is that these terms are attached to organic and molecular energy. When we talk about being dead, when molecular and organic energy no longer work, the atoms and sub-atomic energies have longer stories to tell.
I've heard that the elements are indestructible, and if that's the case, can I feel what they're telling me, now?
Some intuitive imp tugs my sleeve and tells me that these shamanic journeys they talk about aren't about going there and coming back. It's more about the vivid fervency that's gone into myriads of journeys that brought me here, and then going back.
With a little learned focus, I feel it's not impossible to allow the intention and attention of the atomic and sub-atomic me address and inform the molecular and organic me.
The precision of maths, the astonishment of music, the heart-felt moments of beauty and the hidden stories of atoms have something in common: this body of self-awareness and experiential acuity. In and by itself, its story and journey go to startling places. Beyond that sense of self how much more can there be? We could start with a cupful of universes.