Our natural state reveals something astonishing, the fact that the knower and the known are a variation in one field. These are not two separate entities, rather they are an activity from a dimension, which is unknowable for the thinker you. Reflecting on the current paradigm of how you know something, the credit goes to the electrical pattern in the human brain. Human beings became conscious after the scientific discovery of Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC), at least that is the subconscious conviction we have, all is brain and body. If you ask an educated being, how do you hear a sound? the answer will be somewhere in line with ear, drums, electricity and sound. Now the step where electricity is converted to an experience of sound is a mystery, even for scientists. When you listen to your favorite music, do you feel electric shocks in your head or, do you hum and enjoy the tune? Not just sounds, any experience- taste, sensations, visual perceptions, smell… the study ends with the observed phenomena of neuro chemical activity. This is not an explanation of how you sense the quality of experience, rather an investigation into visible occurrences. For those of us interested in these matters, we know it is called “the hard problem of consciousness” or as I call it “the hard problem of missing the obvious”. There is nothing wrong in this line of exploration, they help us in alleviating the physical suffering, please keep it. However, when this method is used to investigate the nature of reality or the world, it overlooks the substratum of the observer itself.
It is extremely important to first acknowledge that you are a conscious being. To make it clear, by conscious I mean that you are present here, aware of the subtle voice when you read, the screen, the sounds in the world or any phenomenal activity around you. There are people who even deny that there is consciousness, you are a puppet of your brain and consciousness is a hoax. Either way, if you intuitively sense that you are alive and aware, that should be good enough to proceed from here. I might occasionally contrast with materialistic paradigm to address the “But’s” in the mind, otherwise it will be a transparent non conceptual exploration.
Provisionally, I will use English words to point to an experiential aspect in you. The form which you call my body, is a bundle of sensations, spatially at different points. Depending on where your attention goes, you call it my hand, my leg, my neck etc… And we can categorize the sensations witnessed into three categories, a simple touch, pain or pleasure, the intensity can vary in each. If you simply observe the movement in your body without a narrative, “my body” is just an energetic movement in the awareness, grossest form of this energy being an apparent solid object. These sensations are just known, you don’t have to build a story of how you are knowing it. Now you can just sit or walk or do any action, in any of these states usually Le random thought appears, now this thought or whisper in the head is subtle with no physical form to it, no matter what the content is, it is an object in the same field of awareness in which you are witnessing the body sensations. Initially, it is better to sit and close your eyes during the exploration. The same can be implemented with eyes open for contemplation of animate and inanimate objects you see. Another simple experiment: sit relaxed, minor movements in body is alright. Read this part slowly, slowdown, now…count from one to seven in your mind, again relax, a deep breath should do…. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, seven, there will be a silence in which the counting is happening. Pause for 5 seconds and whisper six in your head. Now you can replace this six with any word or a series of words. Every time you say “I”, “But”, “Then”, “So…”, “God”, “What”, “Science”, “Blah Blah Blah”, ANY word, you are first here to utter it or hear it. You can ask yourself “Who is here?”, while you do this, as soon as you say “Who” observe the silence before you say _______ “is” _______ “here”. If you do this diligently, you will realize that you are the silence between each of these words. These words arise in the silence or awareness you are. You are the zero from which all experience takes place and is known. Ask yourself, who were you before the first thought in your story arose.
One of the implications of knowing yourself as the awareness is, only the content of experience changes in every sentient being. The knowing from which each of us know anything, is the same formless presence. If you look at a person or dog or any biological organism, you simply know by looking at them that some presence is witnessing the world from that point. This is our first-hand experience, of course you cannot account for the quality of the content which is being witnessed, however, the alive aspect can be seen or sensed. The next stage in human evolution which is not necessarily a biological one, is in recognizing this already present common space in which everything apparently plays out from the eternal now. Yes, ultimately this is about the one infinite potential Spirit or light or God or Singularity or Brahman … whatever you want to call it. You are that potential, knowing your possibilities by innocently and humbly forgetting yourself, playing the game of hide and seek in your own home. If the term spirituality or God does not resonate with you, it is understandable. These are in the list of most abused terms in society, the fact that humans are looking for truth via science, religion and spirituality should be motivating. However, these pursuits are egocentric and they are usually conflicting each other. All of these paths are supposed to be clean and honest in their quest, if truth is the goal. An open mind is all that is needed, however, due to a strong identity of consciousness with its limited aspect, which usually is molded by survival or societal conditions, the division is expected.
When a being is born, it is another unique way or POV for the infinite to play in its game. The game ultimately is to experience the polarities and transcend the illusion of polarities to rest in itself again. You can imagine planet earth to be one of the fields of vibration within the infinite consciousness. Basis what can be seen, the Sun is always projecting in the now and everything is witnessed as a movement of energy, spatially the closest object for witnessing is the biological body. Which basically is an instrument for the non-personal game to be played and experienced. We humans tend to look at things in terms of stories or history because we feel them to be a lullaby for the “why” questions we have. The “who” question though is not asked, simply because the limited intelligence of your infinite self cannot handle its illusory death when it is exposed. Also, we have volumes of knowledge which describes you in terms of biological processes. When you immerse yourself with all honesty into the question of Who or What am I? do you realize your true nature of Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence – Consciousness – Bliss), you are the formless, effortless creator and the witness right now. A knowing independent of beliefs may be helpful at this point if you haven’t read it. The world we live in is one giant consciousness within you, there are variations in expression and this does not imply they are divided. The mishappenings and series of unfortunate events is a method consciousness uses to wake up in its own dream through each of us and to move to higher dimensions, where the play is directed by the values derived out of unity and freedom of the first knowing (You already are the pristine, eternal witness). Something like, order through chaos.
So, then what is this unity in vertical we are talking about. Vertical is the part where you recognize that the present moment in space and time manifests from the formless awareness you already are. A clear recognition of the Shiva and the Shakti aspect in you or the Yin and the Yang. Anything you know, from a thought to a body sensation, the physical world or any sounds… they simply appear in you. An intuitive knowing that the body and the world is a movement in you and not the believed notion of I am in the body. When you do not label or categorize an experience you are having or start off with a mental explanation of how, they just become one with you, there is a sigh of relief which arises out of this pure perception. Where the subject and object are a concept limited to space and time and a concept helpful for higher intelligence to perpetuate its play. While there is an activity happening from your POV, there is a clear mindless knowing, that you are untouched in every experience of pain or pleasure or neutrality.