54 The empty consciousness and the inner observer

LG54

Jesus said:
Happy are the poor,
for you belong to the kingdom of heaven.

The statement “Happy are the poor” here of course concerns ‘the poor in spirit’, also mentioned in the New Testament. Those are people without illusion, or at least people who are not trapped in an illusion.

So that has nothing to do with material poverty.

We have already mentioned two forms of consciousness. In personal consciousness we experience ourselves as an individual between birth and death, with everything that goes with it. There is also another state of consciousness in which we experience our connection with all that is. That other state of consciousness is called the Christ consciousness in Gnostics, and in contemporary language the transpersonal consciousness. In that state of consciousness there is no attachment at all to what appears to consciousness.

We always have something of that open consciousness, even in everyday life. And that reveals itself in the fact that we can perceive ourselves, even our emotions.

Usually this will not be experienced as special, but it is still very remarkable that we can be angry and perceive that we are angry, that we can be happy and perceive that we are happy, and so on. There appears to be an inner observer within us who can perceive the state of our mind without being a participant in it, without being attached to it and, above all, without being identified with it.

It is already quite a step on the spiritual path when you realize that there is such a thing as an observer in you. Spiritual growth consists primarily of becoming more aware of the observer in you. You then acquire the ability to perceive yourself from inner freedom.

Sometimes you can immerse yourself fully in what you are doing in the here and now. You can also observe yourself in the position of the inner observer, especially the state of your mind.

The inner observer, also called the inner witness, can see all the movements of your mind without judgment, without merging into it and without fighting it. The inner observer can see that you are angry, without being angry yourself, or perceive that you are happy without being happy yourself. The observer sees that there is anger or happiness, but is completely free from it. That is why it is said that the consciousness of the inner observer is empty or with the symbol word in this logion: poor, poor in spirit. The inner observer is like a mirror that merely reflects, without itself being the reflected reality.

That state of consciousness is completely detached and is called empty or poor, but it is not without its own qualities. You can summarize those qualities of that consciousness under: free, trust, being and goodness.

Free

The inner observer is completely free. It is free, or, with a usual term, ‘freedom of mind’. The inner observer is the inner free. Free is the essence of the inner observer.

Trust

Confidence as a characteristic of the inner observer is the inner condition of a calm and unwavering certainty. It is not a dogmatic certainty, which consists of attachment to outer truths, but more a form of fearlessness, regardless of all circumstances. Trust knows no fear. The inner observer can still detect fear, or any other emotion, in your mind, but is not a participant in it yourself. Perhaps unlike what you would expect, fearless trust even allows you to make any emotional condition happen to you uncensored and perceive in yourself, including fear, but without being attached to it yourself. The inner observer himself is fearless, free from any movement of mind.

That free of the inner observer of his own movements of mind makes one free to choose whether or not to act accordingly. People are not dragged unintentionally by all sorts of emotions, but can freely decide, considering the emotional state of your mind, to sometimes and sometimes not to connect with such an emotion and to act accordingly.

To be

The being aspect is a kind of solid ground under your feet. It is a very characteristic experience that can make you say “I am”. There is the experience of pure and crystal clear ‘being’.

It is like walking on water. That is, the ground under your feet is not hard and immovable, but flowing, creating, happening – a stream of being. And it is precisely that mobility that is, very paradoxically, the solid ground under your feet. Because there is nothing more that you can go under. Logion 50 already says it is a movement and a rest. Life is a movement, like running water, like a rippling and sometimes even turbulent sea, but the calm security of the inner observer does not perish there, how intense the current, no matter how fierce the waves.

Christ, as a symbol of this inner observer, the Christ nature in a human, walks on the water, Matthew tells. Peter, the symbol of a human who first found apparent safety in ‘the boat’, as a symbol of dogmatic security, gets out of the boat and threatens to drown. But the Christ in himself knows how to save him.

Goodness

This is the experience of fundamental goodness. In this logion it is called “being happy,” often translated into Christian texts with “being blessed.”

That goodness is not a moral judgment about the events in reality, but a characteristic of the inner observer. The inner observer is no longer attached to what is observed, but it is precisely that detachment that makes the combative and unconditional submission to reality in the here and now possible.

Precisely because the inner observer is detached, it allows you to be touched conditionally and in total emotional openness in your heart by the events in the world.

So there is a remarkable duality: on the one hand the detached inner observer is in a state of untouchable goodness, on the other hand the inner observer can then censurelessly detect how the circumstances of life can touch the heart, and base the actions in the world on it .

In fact, the detachment of the inner observer can allow you to experience the pain and joy of your fellow creatures as your own pain and joy, without threatening or arousing desire. And you could also call that love.

Here, in this logion, the goodness, that happiness aspect, that is, the salvation of the inner observer, is emphasized. And that is not without significance.

The sense of goodness is an important indicator of unity with the Source. Even though the first three fundamental experiences of freedom, trust and being may be missing, the sense of goodness can also manifest itself. We also experience that sense of goodness when we are accidentally connected to the Source, when we walk in nature or listen to music. So it is extremely important to learn to recognize that feeling and to dare to trust it as a message from your soul that lets you know that this is what life is all about, what really matters to you.

That very special sense of goodness will usually present itself when you do something, when you are doing something.

It is a cosmic pat on the back
that tells you
that it’s good
you are who you are
and
[this] is what you have to do here on earth right now.

With that experience of goodness you are in the kingdom, in the here and now.