I Never Go Anywhere
I am on a train to Heathrow Airport on my way to the States. At least, that’s what thought says. Experience tells me that I am going nowhere. I am always in the same place-less place of experiencing; never going anywhere. Perceptions flow through Me; sights, sounds, textures, tastes and smells flow through Me. And thought arranges these into a story which says ‘I-this-collection-of-thoughts-and-sensations-called-a-body-and-a-mind is moving through the world’. But experience says no such thing. Experience says ‘All these flow through Me’.
Buildings, wires, trains, sounds, sights; all these are moving through Me. I am not moving through them. Thought says ‘I am moving forward toward a place or a location or an object’. But experience tells me that I am always in the same place-less place of experiencing; that all things come to Me…, I don’t go to them. Experience comes towards Me, I don’t go towards it. I remain eternally present in the dimension-less, place-less place of experiencing…, never going anywhere, never going towards an object or another. Just being pure sensitivity, pure openness that allows all experience to be just as it is; coming to Me, flowing through Me, dissolving into Me. But I-this-openness, this availability, this sensitivity never going anywhere.
Thought says that ‘I am entering the airplane’ but experience tells me that the airplane is entering Me. My only knowledge of this airplane at the moment is a visual perception, and this perception comes to Me, arises in Me, takes place in Me; I don’t take place in it. I am the openness, the emptiness, the pure availability which allows this perception to take place…, the open space in which it appears, and with which it is known…, and ultimately, out of which this perception is made.
Thought says that ‘I am 30,000 feet up in the sky’ but experience says no such thing. For experience, there is a collection of sights, sounds and textures strung together by thought to form a story-line that seems to describe my experience. But I have no actual experience of being 30,000 feet up in the sky inside an airplane. I have no experience of being ‘somewhere’. All ‘somewheres’ are made out of Me, appear in Me. I don’t appear in them. My only knowledge of the inside of an airplane is the current perception. My only knowledge of 30,000 feet in the sky is a perception plus a thought. Experience knows no such thing. Without reference to memory, I would have no idea that I was inside an airplane or 30,000 feet up in something called a sky. All these are concepts that thought super-imposes onto the raw intimacy of my experience. The raw intimacy of my experience is that I am always (in fact, not ‘always’ [as] in time but) eternally present Now…, not located in a place…, located in the dimension-less presence of my own Being.
Thought says that ‘We have landed and are moving at a terrific speed’ but I-pure-experiencing know no such thing. A series of abstract, meaningless perceptions flow through Me. It is only by referring to memory that thought interprets these abstracts images and makes out of them an idea of a runway, an airplane landing, terrific speed, etc. I am not going anywhere.
Experience for me has no particular meaning. It is just what it is, from moment to moment.
And finally, thought says that ‘I have arrived’. But for experience, there is no arriving, just as there is no leaving. I-this-open-emptiness, this pure-sensitivity-and-availability, this open-empty-Knowing…, I never go anywhere. I never leave home. I never come back to home. I always simply remain in Myself, as Myself…, taking the shape of the full range of experience…, but never becoming anything other than Myself…,
remaining in Myself, as Myself…,
Knowing-Being Myself alone.
Rupert Spira
I Never Go Anywhere
