Beyond Thoughts: Consciousness and The Self
Beyond Thoughts: Consciousness and The Self
For years now, I have been practicing to shift my consciousness, practicing every day to slow down and change my relationship with my thoughts, actions, and reactions. This desire to practice was never part of any conscious agenda or anything I set out to do as a life path. Each turn and lesson happened organically, and it’s only now that I realize I was drawn by an energy beyond my conscious mind. Over the years, I just did what was in front of me, one step at a time.
The Journey Within: Slowing Down and Changing Relationship with Thoughts
Once the monkey mind, the thought stream, and the mind chatter slow down enough in meditation, an awareness opens to an underlying nurturing, loving energy beneath it all. For me, it took many years to begin to notice and experience this energy. But after hearing about this from being Sally Kempton’s student for so many years and from having read about it in countless spiritual texts, when I began to connect with that place, it felt familiar. Not only because I had learned about it intellectually, but I also realized that it was a familiar physical sensation I had felt on a soul level.
The Emergence of Awareness: Recognizing the Nurturing Energy
As I started experiencing this energy in meditation, my first thought was, “Oh, that’s the Self.” I had heard the words and had it described to me many times, so I assumed I somehow knew what I was expecting to find even though I never deliberately sought it out. You don’t exactly know what you are looking for until it is there.
Once you have connected with the presence of the Self, you discover it is always accessible. For me, I also experience a feeling of being home, as if this is the place that is HOME for us all. Sometimes I will have the thought, “Oh, I can sit here forever, this is where I belong.” This energy is consciousness, the Self that connects us all.
Diverse Traditions, One Energy: Perspectives on Consciousness
This energy is discussed in most traditions and texts on spirituality and meditation, and there are many names for it. Teachers like Dr. David Hawkins call it the Self, while the Yogis call it both the Self as well as other traditional names for this underlying steady energy, like Shiva or Brahman. Shiva is considered to be the primal Atman (soul, Self) or the universe.
Buddhists, on the other hand, call this energy an emptiness or void. Early on, this description felt misleading for me because the words “empty” and “void” felt like something negative. It was only after I had experienced it for myself that I understood that what the Buddhists mean by “void” is a place of all-encompassing nurturing love.
Beyond Thoughts: Exploring the Space Behind Mind Chatter
When I guide people in meditation, I ask them to consider what lies beyond thoughts. What lies beneath the thought stream? It’s almost as if you can imagine yourself stepping over your own thoughts into the space behind your mind chatter. I also like to ask, what is it that holds your thoughts? Who is thinking these thoughts?
Visual Metaphors for Consciousness: Lighthouses and Theater Stages
I’ve heard consciousness visually described as imagining a lighthouse shining its light onto the sea. Regardless of the weather, if there is a storm or if it’s raining, and whether the sea is active or calm, the lighthouse is always there, always on, holding the space. The lighthouse is always there, observing the turbulent activity. Ramana Maharshi describes a theater stage where the light overhead is always on, yet down below are various dramas playing themselves out.
The Steady Presence: Witnessing Human Drama Unaffected
Consciousness—the Self—is that light, beyond thoughts and beyond our mind, that is always on, always witnessing our human drama. Yet, it is never affected by any of it. It stays the same, a steady presence, the underlying ground of being that holds us all.
“It is only because our inner instruments are not refined enough to approach the Self that we have to meditate. The yoga sutras of Patanjali, and authoritative scripture on meditation, explains that although the self is always blazing within us, the restlessness of the mind acts as a barrier. According to Patanjali, when the mind becomes still and turns inward we immediately perceive the Self.”
– Meditate: Happiness Lies Within You by Swami Muktananda [pg. 16]

Meditation as a Gateway: Refining Inner Instruments to Perceive Consciousness & the Self
Years ago, the teachers I studied with and other seasoned meditators used to say that they felt as if they were meditating all the time, all day long. Of course, I had no idea what they meant. But in the last few years, I have felt this too, like I am inside the meditation space, in the flow, throughout the day. Meditation is no longer a piece of my day; some days it’s all day. Most things that I do that seem mundane, such as dishes, cooking, and paying bills, all can be part of that flow. The deep internal connection I feel is there throughout all activities.
Continuous Meditation: Integrating Flow into Daily Life
When you are present in this way, no longer resisting life, everything falls inside of each moment, inside of love. Dishes and everything else are done with a sense of love and devotion. When resistance falls away, and there is only presence, one ends up in that consciousness, in that flow by default. Moving forward in life, not attached, completely present, and connected.
Presence and Devotion: Embracing Every Moment with Love
Living like this, connected to consciousness and living in sync with the flow of life, is an all-encompassing state of being that is spacious. It is a physical feeling rather than an emotion, a feeling of being nurtured rather than a thought: “Oh…I am nurtured.” Rather, not really thinking or skipping with joy but fully engaged in each moment and what is in front of me right here and right now. Life doesn’t feel jagged and frazzled anymore. Instead, everything you do is part of one meditation, as you flow from one activity to another. You rest in the inner knowing that events will unfold as they should.
“It is a relief to let the mind become silent and just be with the surroundings. Peace results and appreciation and calm prevail.”