The beginning, you never have to have just one.

What would prompt someone to seek consciousness?

I grew up fairly devout in a particular faith. I accepted that all the answers came from God. I had many intellectual questions about God, but I did not find the state of constant questioning to exclude me from the membership in that church. Eventually, I outgrew that religious path, under somewhat painful circumstances. Still, the fun began there with what would become more than a decade of exploring the literature and even participating in other religions, New Thought, gnosticism, various philosophical schools of thought, nihilism too. I couldn't shake the basic foundation of the faith, holding a largely polar view of actions, thoughts, morals, and values which fostered judgmentalness. But some of the other, more transcendent themes of creative power, forgiveness, and miracles were also in my framework. Like many of my open-minded peers, I came to identify as agnostic.

All throughout art school I was in bliss. It was one of those things where I really shouldn’t have ended up in such a great university and art school because I hadn’t made any plans. I had been wishing and wishing of course, sending it out there, and producing art as I always had. But something shifted at some point, and I’d had enough of the city I grew up in, moved to where I wanted to be on a whim, and watched as many of the situations and circumstances I wanted instantaneously manifested, including my partnership that is now going on 8 years - and began the week I’d moved there.

I’d hate to rely on memories to feel contentment, but I continue to feel the sustained benefit of the time. I was synchronized with, well, everything. I had an overwhelming belief in destiny. I was somewhat unguarded but found that in the drift of that, I was always flowing into the next beautiful moment, whatever circumstances the moment held all felt imbued with hope and optimism.

When I found a calling to be a creative, naturally I found myself interested in the material world. The moments of actual enjoyment of the material world, light hearted and joyful, were actually quite rare. I found myself engaged in a rather dramatic story of gain and loss that also came to involve people and places in addition to things. I have since reconciled my relationship with what I would acknowledge to be the world of form – its rich variety and stunning detail I embrace and wish to add on to artistically.

When I left art school, I made a few practical choices. In hindsight I resisted the knowledge that I was breaking my own heart and had taken a definitive stance, at least in that moment, to decide that the world would get the better of me if I continued to pursue adventure and I had to play it safe to survive. I moved back to the city I grew up in, a city I feel love for but never managed to connect to. As the present happiness began to slip into the past, it all began to come together as a story that was just a shadow of how it had been and what it meant. What’s worse, I began to compare it to the current life situation and a dichotomy began.

Why did I move back? Why did I let fear guide me rather than let the unknown amaze me? These aren’t useful questions if asked in regret. But as I return to these questions over and over, I start to meditate on the actual constructive answers and meanings. That can only be found in the stillness, when the over-analytical chatter of the mind dies down.

I was not synthesizing things well. Professional mishaps that eventually lead to an overall feeling of being very divorced from my purpose continued to feed the past, creating an unbearable sense of distance from everything important to me. The worst mishaps were the ones where I rose in my not-my-calling career. Seduced by the practical benefits such as money and supposed success, I was increasingly lulled and then pulled into deep unconsciousness. The very good experiences of my past: meeting amazing individuals, seeing beautiful things, being in art school, maturing in artistic and historic literacy and conceptual comprehension… had become somewhat enveloped or muddled by the dramatic story. Finally, I entered into what I felt was a powerful existential crisis, and depression. Again.

It was worse than the times that the depression felt more acute. When I was younger, even the sadness felt like it was on fire. This was more like a despair. It felt cold, and stiff, and heavy, like you couldn’t budge it without a bomb. My body temperature began to feel constantly cold too.

I won’t go into a more vivid description of the dark time.

Time-wise, it wasn’t really that long ago that I hit the lowest point. It was about a couple of months ago.

Even recounting this now, I feel like I’ve left out the meat of the story – the specific events that all came together at the same unfortunate time. Maybe I will tell more down the road, but I feel like it isn’t very useful. I want to talk more about the things I have in common with many in this world, rather than the distinctions that would make my story unique.

I don’t wish to call this a crisis anymore, but, the meditation to manifest myself and not be pulled under is ongoing. I’ve started to share this because I have finally come in contact with a light in this universe that at best can be described is the light that radiates even if the eye only sees pitch black. I found it mostly through meditation and relish that I will be able to see it more vividly in the meditative state and in a constant Now-centered mindfulness.

I found that when I just opened my heart to the universe and asked, things started to happen. I found a lot of the initial and significant resources to me were already in my possession, either literally as things or in the people around me. A long-owned, partially read, and neglected copy of Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" was already on my shelf. I still remember the day I started to read it. I was painfully aware that my heart had been pounding all day, and my brain was full of vicious, vindictive messages. But I read it, and the goodness kind of began. The Ego had a countervoice to foil with, and yet there was no true battle going on, because the other voice, the voice of the soul, was actually trying to console both me and the Ego, speaking of liberation to us both.

It's sad that it should surprise me, but I found that I could immediately access Love. That was a good realization, to know that my heart was still alive and full of intentions and gratitude. I started to experience strange coincidences. They did not match that electric synchronicity that I experienced throughout art school, but I knew that the purpose of being alive was still itself alive for me and working through the world.

One night, while traveling to my partner’s family’s part of the country, I was up very late at night, meditating and meditating. I had become able to remain conscious throughout the time span. I drifted but re-centered. Eventually, in that darkness, I finally saw a bright light. I held the light and remained connected to it until I finally did fall asleep, but I awoke the next morning recalling the experience immediately.

As is my nature, over the following few days, I tried to chase the light. That didn’t help. I had a few troubled meditations. The Ego had arisen in the darkness and was aggressively pursuing my attention. I noticed the Ego was active in the morning when I had just awoken and was very vulnerable. It began chattering and causing worry. It didn’t actually generate true concern or a course of action, just crippling what-ifs piled high into the sky. The mornings actually continue to be the greatest challenges of my day. But I persisted in the meditations.

What would prompt someone to seek consciousness? I'd like to think its an inevitability in most people's lives when confronted by the actual limitation of their self. Personality, even most of what we call character, may have impulsively or instinctively descended to occupy us, feeling natural to us, and might give us joy in ourselves or perhaps to facilitate a justified feeling about what we do.

I'm not trying to say its all throw-away. I'm just trying to diminish what that story of me has meant to me, because all stories have an end, often what was most expected - that's the last thing I would ever need, is a knowledge of how the story will go. If there's anything I want to access in its totality, its my own being in this now moment. If how I understand my life is only ever the narrative story of me, even if it's compelling or interesting, I can only ever feel like that story. And when I veer off from the story, I feel a sense of dissatisfaction or not being justified of the past or to be obsessed with adding a great chapter and creating the desired resolutions to the ongoing saga.

I just want to be. To take it all lightly and actually enjoy this experience. I think the last time I'd ever felt light in my doings was when everything was flowing and nothing was particularly good nor bad, and in that sense was actually blissful. I realize I'm fortunate that I can look backwards and actually see it had been a part of my being at several points. I have more enthusiasm for embracing consciousness, thanks to the knowledge that manifestation and ease that would accompany an untroubled person truly exists and pervades. Others have no ability to draw on experience at all and to me, I marvel at their ability to still find bliss. It inspires me, and adds value to us all. I'm thankful to them.

Where I join everyone else is that even with past experience, I can't summon things or situations from the past into this moment. I can't really rely on it except as information, helpful as the information may be even for present doings. No, just like everyone else, I have to accept the present for what it is and be engaged in it if I'm to really feel friendly with the present, and in turn, friendly towards my life, to others and to the world as it is. You can't really expect to thoroughly enjoy doing anything with or for an unfriendly person.

It's not that I have to do, be, or suffer things to be worthy, either.

After all, life isn't this versus that; the opposites are usually both neither true.

But, I do think it benefits me to be humble. To give the world and universe a chance to be bigger than me and at times take over for me. And for that to not be terribly, terribly important to me either way. It's not lethargy or apathy. It's accepting whatever is as it is. And acceptance also includes accepting: This can actually be changed! Then I'll go from there.

I continue to cultivate what I am starting to realize is a vast stillness within, to recognize my capacity to accept the bounty of this present experience. Okay, if it's a good moment, I'll hang to it and let it linger. But I would like so much to then blissfully move on into the unknown.