The Light of Consciousness

Beautiful, but messy.

Consciousness often feels like an overhead light, casting a circle of illumination. I sit at the center, aware of everything touched by the light. Beautiful.

As I become more conscious, the light moves upward, expanding its reach, revealing more. It sounds lovely, and it is—until you see what the light uncovers. That is where things get messy, even uncomfortable.

The new ground revealed by the light of consciousness can range from mildly cringeworthy to deeply shame-inducing.

Warren Buffet’s famous saying, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked,” is about financial exposure, but it applies just as well to consciousness.
The sea, in this case, is the sea of unconsciousness. Blank and uniform, the only thing we know about it is that it exists. When the light of consciousness shines on it, it is like the tide receding, uncovering what was once hidden in the depths—old bed frames, rusty bicycles, illegal sewage pipes.

But instead of trash, what we see in ourselves is much harder to face: petty jealousies, anger, fears, anxieties, longings, power-hungry impulses, grudges, cruelty, selfishness, hate. As the light of consciousness expands, it exposes all of these and more, things that have been long buried in the dark.

An increase in consciousness can reveal all the above and more. The searing light of consciousness illuminating, loving, and transforming all the dark little pockets that have covered us is ultimately lovely but the process of transforming can be painful.

It is why people avoid this process I think, and from a certain perspective, I can see the logic in the avoidance. But when you understand the process and that increasing consciousness is always going to have an uncomfortable leading edge then you become familiar with that uncomfortableness. And it is balanced by the joy of uncovering more of your true nature.

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Photo by Sanketh Hiremath on Unsplash