A Practical Application: The Egg Boundary 285
So allow me to explain. So everything that happens in my experience, whether it is in my environment, or inside myself, or with people, or with the room, pets, thoughts, etc... it is all within my experience. So there is a containment really that all that I am experiencing in this moment, including physical sensations and even the experience of my body as well, is all contained still to my experience. So how and even why is imagining placing/recognizing this egg like or spherical boundary around me important/helpful?
So because I have believed on some levels of myself that my experiences are somewhat more powerful than me and that I get enveloped within things so deeply, I have a level of separation existent all the time. How do this work? So one example is a separation with what I feel as emotions or feelings. For some reason I can be in an isolated part of my mind, and be within thinking and the mind, and be separate from what I feel inside myself and the rest of my body. So that is a way of living that has been going on for some time within me. When the truth is that this way of living is not a reflection of who I am and what I consist of. So this is where the boundary comes into play.
In a way it is not a boundary of so much isolating myself from the world out there, but it's the opposite, to bring my awareness to the world that is right here in front of my own eyes. Like in the example I just placed where at times I am isolated in my mind, my awareness is not here within my environment, and how I feel in my body. So when I place my focus and attention to everything that is happening in this moment within all parts of myself, including the mind, body, thinking, the people in it, and furniture, sounds, smells, than it then being really aware of reality and this world within what is my experience OF this world. Because in all honesty I am only aware of a very small part of this world, which is the extent of what is right in front of me, and immediately around me. But even that small part that I can be aware of, I haven't been very much aware of throughout all the years I have lived on this Earth.
And what I notice to be a crucial element/aspect found within having my awareness being isolated within my mind, within thinking, is this definition that is existing on some level of my thoughts where I believe that what I think is real, is reality, and is a reflection of this world. When it's actually the opposite, that I am not aware of even the part of the world I have access to, which is this immediate experience of what is here.
An example would be thinking about someone in my life, and as I am thinking about them, there is a belief that this is real, that I am in a way interacting with them, who they really are. It is as if I am having a miniaturized version of them within my mind that I am communicating with this version and that is somehow being an accurate and truthful embodiment and representation of who they really are in this very moment, even if where they really are is miles/kilometers away! If that were so I would have like some sort of psychic connection or other magical powers, and I would be able to access who they are, and at the same time make judgments, beliefs, imagination, and play outs in my mind.
So this boundary then too, dispels the illusion that I am having some connection to someone else out there, when I am within thinking, thoughts, fantasies, and imaginations. So how this plays out for me in the real time is that my thoughts, emotions, and feelings are here and they sort of just circulate within this bubble/sphere/egg that is around me that encompasses my experience. So within that, none of what I think, or feel leaves my experience, and what I notice is an almost dropping of a veil, where with my thoughts I believed that they were outside of my experience, and so they in a way bounce back from this boundary back into this self-containment of my experience. In this way the thoughts, and reactions loses a value as a belief that they were somehow more than me, when really they are just another part that is circulating and moving within this boundary field that contains all of me, and my entire experience of myself.
A practical example where this has helped me is for example when I am outside on the road and I meet someone somewhere, or I observe some people talking, and something they say or do, I have a reaction to. It can be positive or negative. Let's say that I felt happy because of how they were dressed. And so normally I would enter into the thought about how they were dressed and that would be my experience. But now if I were to recognize this boundary of my experience, and so bring my awareness that everything and all that I experience is just my experience, then I see that ok, I am feeling happy right now in reaction to what I am seeing and I am thinking in my mind about how they are dressed. So that seeing becomes so much easier because I am aware too that I am feeling other things in my body and that there are other things here, the cars, the sounds, and my entire experience of myself, which is so much more than just this one part of what I am thinking and feeling. So this method helps in not getting caught up in a thought or an emotional or feeling reaction. You can say that your awareness expands to what is here, and everything that makes up the entire experience of yourself. One trouble with how we have lived our lives is that when we are in a thought or part of the mind, that when we are there for so long, we tend to believe that that may make up all of our experience of ourselves. We then just believe that that is all there is. And then we think that our thoughts are a reflection of the reality, that we are in fact missing out on because our awareness isn't here to our immediate environment. So in a way our thoughts begin to form and try to fill the gap that we have of missing out on real reality, by stating an opinion or point of view of reality.
When I was applying this method of seeing this boundary that contains all of my experience, so that I can be aware of all my experiences, and what is in fact going on on the different levels of myself, including mind and body, one of the first things I notice is a disconnect that occurs on the level of my thoughts and mind where thoughts or feelings/emotions I was having loses a value or definition that made it seem real or bigger than me. This may be because when I have this boundary here, I see what the mind's real size is in relation to the body, and my environment as well as my entire experience of myself, which includes as well my experience of the environment and body, and the detail of sounds, and physical sensations. The mind is a part of my experience, just a part, and it is also within my body, contained. It is not outside of me, far away, it is right here. So the mind loses validity. It is not making a real assessment of a person or subject matter that it is making a commentary on. It is more like an opinion that holds no weight. And before, I was only believing and feeling that it had a weight, because I was within it, completely enveloped within it and my awareness was contained within it, instead of directing my awareness to contain all of me.
So this the actually leads to another really cool point. The physical body is like a container. I was going to say natural container, but a better word would be, already present container. You have a body. You also have a mind. Now, the body contains the mind. The mind doesn't contain the body. But your mind certainly tries its best to possess you and possess the body, which means to take control of this container that is your body. So it does this, at least in part, by keeping your awareness to just itself the mind, instead of on the real container of the mind and yourself, which is the body. If you were aware of the container of the mind, then wouldn't you also be aware of all of the contents within the container, and so thus the mind? So that's a reason why being aware of your physical boundary, and so reality, is so supportive within walking the process of stepping out of the mind and into the physical reality. As a disclaimer for those that are just starting this process, that it is not enough to be aware of the body, physical reality, and the mind. Awareness can only be a first step to then take action. The action being release/change/correction/self-forgiveness. So that is what I applied in conjunction with this process of seeing the boundary, and containing myself to myself, instead of projecting myself outside there into the world through thinking/the mind. What I experience is me, and so I use SELF-forgivness through it all to remove that which is not valid, which is a lie, deception, misrepresentation, or harm, which exists on the level of the mind. And a hint, All thoughts are lies.
Good Luck!
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