I woke up this morning, feeling fresh, well rested. I looked across the room to the blue curtain hanging by the brown wooden window frame. The contrast of bright blue on woody brown was stunning and I decided to linger with my attention there for a minute. As I continued to enjoy this vivid display of color, a sense of beauty arose in me.
"That's beautiful," I thought to myself, while looking at this vivid blue on brown arrangement of light.
"Ah, beauty!" I thought to myself next. I had been eagerly awaiting a chance to explore this beauty thing in greater depth. What is this thing we call beautiful? I investigated inwardly with an attentive curiousity. Ah, yes... beauty is a feeling, an emotion!
It sounds strange even writing it now, but in the moment it's so clear. Beauty is my enjoyment of my concept about the show of light I was watching. It's a sorta inward vibing with myself and my own thought "this is beautiful." Because I have concieved that I'm observing a "beautiful thing," I can experience a sorta inward pleasure with myself. Because "I" am witnessing the beauty, and because "I" am a part of this beauty - I get a warm pleasure inside. In essence, the beauty wouldn't even exist if not for "me!" and what a wonderful boost this is for "me."
"Ah, yes... this is what I've been calling "beauty." What a waste! Let me throw that out," I thought next. The absurdity of it required no further investigation. "Now, let me see what this experience actually is," I continued with the inquiry. What is this blue and brown? What is this seeing? What are these sensations in my eyeballs which are percieving color - vibrant, active, radiating.
I continued to look at the colors with the directness of my actual eyes. Abandoning the safe space behind the eyes where I could sit and observe - the safe space where "I" still exist. I lept forward, into the colors themselves, into my eyeballs, into the sensations. The colors were the sensations, the curtains were the colors, my eyes were the sensing. The sensing was active. These colors were not dead, lifeless, inert. These colors were now! These colors, the actual experience, was actually happening. Light entering eyeballs, a selection of wavelengths percieved by the sensitive apparatus of the visual organ. Each wavelength unique and distinct by it's very factual existence. The sensing was the most intimate and direct contact with these already existant colors.
Delight would be a small understatement. Pleasure fits well. What a joy these colors were. The joy was the sensing - there was no gap. No sensing first and then enjoying. The sensing was the enjoying. Sensuosness. The pure pleasure of unadulterated sensing. Actual color, actual light.
It was clear that I had left the territory known as the beautiful and was now traveling in a new landscape. This landscape was completely unknown as it's existence was only in the present moment. There was no way to have been there before, thus no way to have known it previously.
What was "beauty" had now opened up into a new world of sight and seeing. Beauty had fallen by the wayside. Things still held some resemblence to that old image of beauty. The experience was still fascinating, scintillating, vibrant, stunning, wondrous, active and dynamic. The pleasure of it had only increased if anything. But, beautiful? A far cry. Such a personal and self-referential adjective couldn't possibly describe this experience which was so much more than "I" could ever be.
Ah... time passed and I sat down thinking, "maybe I should write about that experience." I began to reflect on it (as I'm also reflecting on it now while typing.)
Reflecting thus, "going beyond beauty. What a wonderful experience," I began again to tune into my experience. This time I sat at my computer, music playing, soft light coming in through the blinds.
"Ah, yes. It's still here." *IT* being the actual universe as experienced through the sense organs. It is still here indeed! Ha!
I hear the music and once again take the leap. The leap into the sensations themselves, free from my self. The music surrounds me, it approaches from every angle, as I sit in the music itself - In the hearing, at the exact point of dynamic contact. The colors blend with sound, as it all becomes just raw sensation. This time the pleasure nears overwhelm, and literally knocks the breath out of me. I recoil to catch my breath. Physical waves of pleasure move through the entirety of my body.
This is new.
I've never ventured this far out before - this far beyond "the beautiful."
Habitual reactions come up. Mostly fear. "Oh, this is too much," and "oh, I can't take this," and "I can't handle this," and "this isn't good," etc.
I pause and consider the facts: Well, certainly I wouldn't live very long if I'm not breathing, so catching my breath is a sound idea. But, having the breath knocked out of me is just a startle response to the rather surprising stimuli of such intense pleasure. There's nothing about the pleasure itself that is overwhelming. Ok, excuse diverted.
I continued the inquiry. "Could I live there forever?" And the next fear became clear: "Ah... but it will consume all of me. Like a black hole, it will absorb me completely." And for some reason this seems "scary"? The scariness of it evades me at this moment. A flurry of other reactions and resistance shows it's head - all of it unfounded in any sort of sensibility.
It's like a tin can called "beauty" was sitting on my shelf and I naively decided to open it. "Experience" popped out, and now there's no getting it back in. In fact, I'm not sure I can even find the can anymore.
I sit, continuing to type. Yes, there is still work to do. This isn't, at all, the end of the journey, but the end of this little tale. A tale which continues on as this moment, "this only moment of being alive."
