I am finishing a four-week assignment as a remote doctor.
One more week to go.
Then I fly home. One week off. Then the next assignment.
And this week, somewhere between workdays, a thought arrived that I could not shake.
I know I will be forgotten.
Not eventually. Almost immediately.
The people I’ve worked alongside these four weeks — the ones I talked with, problem-solved with, shared long days with — will go on with their lives the moment I leave. And within a short while, it will be as if I was never here.
All my experiences, however, that were real in the moment had no true reality. When I leave, what I say has happened has vanished, and in fact, never really existed.
If everything is this temporary, then what is real?
I do not seem to get beyond this question.
Experience, in the moment it occurs, seems real when it appears.
1. If Everything is temporary, what is real?
In reality, there is nothing.
I can already hear some of you: Oh, Louis! I like your writing, but this goes too far!
Fair. So consider this instead:
You’ve spent time with people on a job — maybe years. Then you leave. Have you noticed? Life goes on without you. How quickly you’re forgotten. Memory lives inside you, and inside others, and by itself has no reality at all.
In reality, there is nothing.
The experience of Self that seems real in the moment it appears is what gives thoughts the perception of reality.
If what seems real in the moment has no permanent reality, then what is real?
Am I even asking myself the right question?
The question “what is real?” is still a question asked from a place of consciousness.
In reality, there is nothing.
It is consciousness that gives the illusion of existence separate from the totality of things.
There can never be one thing existing in isolation from everything else that it is part of.
2. Finding my peace is knowing that I don’t exist as such.
Realizing that I don’t exist as such, I find peace in knowing that what I am is everything, and nothing in particular.
The illusion of something existing apart from everything else happens in my consciousness. In reality, there is nothing.
My perfect state is where all is One — where it is impossible to point to a single thing as ever existent.
When I wrote that line in my diary, I suddenly felt very peaceful. I realized this — this exact peace — is really all I’ve ever wanted.
I am not about knowing myself. The Self I wanted to know has no true existence. It only occurs as an idea that makes up consciousness.
I am about what is real and true — which is found in everything, and nothing in particular. And in that place, there is peace. There is wisdom. There is the ability to solve any problem.
Knowing I don’t exist as such dissolves consciousness as an illusion in awareness and releases me from its drama and unnecessary suffering.
I can be aware of being conscious. I cannot be conscious of being aware.
I’m no longer hooked by a sense of Self that gives me a mistaken view of the world.
(In Issue #5 — “Are You Serving A False Master?” — I put it this way: “Your perfect state is where all is One — where it is impossible to point to a single thing as ever existent. The ultimate discovery is the illusion of consciousness.”)
3. Peace is what you really want.
What you really want in life is to be in a place of peace
To be in a place where nothing can touch you.
A place where there is no Self to identify with.
A place where you just are
Return to Being
4. Awareness Intelligence is where you operate from a place where all is One.
In this place of knowing that All is One and any experience of something existing as apart from the totality of things is an illusion of consciousness, there is peace.
A peace that is profound and is the peace of your true nature.
In this place of oneness, action is informed by the totality of things.
The totality of things is what constitutes Being.
Being lacks an object of experience, which implicitly means the totality of things.
In this place of oneness, Awareness Intelligence is what informs the next best action to take. It is where action correlates with Being.
Awareness Intelligence is what naturally connects action to Being.
(I wrote about this more fully in “How To Respond When Someone Is Rude Or Offensive” — the mind simulates Being, and you respond to the simulation as if it were real.)
Why This Matters — Especially If You’re An Entrepreneur
Here’s where this stops being philosophy and starts being useful.
When you return to a place of authentic peace, what becomes available is:
- Realizing when you are stuck with a problem that the solution is not found in the thinking
- Knowing that the source of your anxiety and sense of desperation when you are stuck with a problem is, in essence, found in how you see yourself — which brings you back to being solution-oriented, not Self-oriented
- Awareness Intelligence as the place where All is One, and you no longer identify with something in particular. From there, the next right action simply becomes available.
If this is your first time reading The Awareness Contrarian — subscribe here and receive every issue directly in your inbox.
If you want to experience this in practice — not just as a concept, but as a lived experience — join me for the Awareness Intelligence Bootcamp: Work Smarter, Not Harder. Three live days on Zoom, 45 minutes each day, plus a bonus Masterclass.
We go deep into exactly this: how to stop serving the false master and start operating from Awareness Intelligence — in your work, your leadership, and your decisions.
Click here to find out more about the Bootcamp — July 14-17
With awareness, Louis MD, Founder — Awareness Intelligence
Stay connected with The Awareness Contrarian This article is part of The Awareness Contrarian newsletter series. To receive future issues directly in your inbox, subscribe by email here.
P.S. Share with me how this writing resonated with you by leaving a comment!