Oh I am such an idiot! A blind one too! Though I suppose the fact that I woke up eventually, by myself none-the-less, does redeem me to some degree. But not a very large one.
It isn’t guilt that I feel, thank God I did not collapse that far, only some shame and the inevitable cringe at what I was saying, what I was thinking!
How could I let it full me — this sense of distance, of being outside of myself, outside of life watching, observing? The growing aloofness, the lack of involvement in the reality around me seemed to be … here comes the cringe … seemed to be a mark of growth. “I am growing” I thought, “I am maturing”. “Oh, how splendid that it just happens, all by itself” I congratulated myself on … on my achievement.
Only this, if nothing else, should have shown me that I am not realized and achieved, but lost and collapsed.
That and … of gosh, another cringe … the things I was saying! Pontificating on the nature of life and universe like an all-knowing master. Ha, I can see now that the look on Chris’s face was not one of rapt interest but a polite tolerance. That, all those speeches, all those stories, should have been a dead giveaway…
And maybe it was for I did wake up. I do not remember how nor when, I do not recall the precise moment, I only remember the sudden awareness of my distance, my — what I thought as — presence, my silent observer being a withdrawal. “I am disassociating” I realized, “I am removing myself from my body, I am removing myself from life. I am scared and confronted, and I am retreating into myself and If I continue – I will leave life all together.”
This I remember, clearly and sharply, better even that the mortification of facing my self-satisfied enlightenment-dumbness.
This I remember: the clear awareness of the observer being a ghost self-removed from life. Not an enlightened being, hardly a being at all.
