Why You Are a Happening, Not a History
The Heavy Weight of Boundaries
We often carry the heavy weight of our own boundaries, feeling like a solitary island in a vast, indifferent sea. This sense of being a completely separate, isolated individual is perhaps the most common human experience, yet it is a perspective that obscures a more profound reality.
Spiritual Awakening is not the acquisition of new, book-learned knowledge or some esoteric secret.
Instead, it is the realization that you are simultaneously Fully Human and Fully Spiritual. It is your everyday experience “seen correctly,” which is why it is called an awakening rather than an achievement.
By shifting our perspective, we begin to see our lives not as static objects, but as intrinsic parts of a singular, living whole.
You Are a Verb, Not a Noun
What you are and how you appear are not-two things.
In our modern world, we are conditioned to view ourselves as “nouns”—fixed, static objects.
But nondual wisdom suggests we are more like “verbs”: constant, dynamic processes or “happenings.”
Look closely at the metaphor of a whirlpool in a river.
You can point to a whirlpool and see its distinct shape and boundaries. It appears to be a separate thing, yet it is made entirely of the river.
There is no point where the river ends and the whirlpool begins. The form exists only because of the flow.
You can feel this “verb-ness” in your own body right now.
Your breath is a flow of air; your blood is a literal river in constant movement.
You are not a container for life; you are the process of living itself.
“The whirlpool is not a thing in the river; it is the river itself, acting ‘whirlpool-wise’ for a brief moment in time.”
For a closer exploration of the identity behind this metaphor, read Your True Identity is Existence Happening.
The Myth of the Separate “Feeler”
Our minds create a “myth of separation” through the process of super-imposition. Consider a simple sensory experiment: the act of smelling a rose.
If you close your eyes and focus entirely on the scent, there is only “smelling.”
There is no “me” and no “rose”—just the experience.
It is only when you open your eyes and see the rose as a separate object that the mind super-imposes the idea of a separate “nose” or a separate “feeler.”
This inquiry invites you to notice how the idea of a separate “feeler” is added to the immediacy of sensing. It is an invitation to look, rather than a logical proof drawn from closing the eyes.
In my contemplative reading of the Oṃ symbol, the crescent represents the veil of apparent separation, which I associate with Māyā. This is my teaching lens, rather than a description of the crescent given in the Māṇḍūkya Upanishad.
Maya is the veiling power of super-imposition, the mental activity that solidifies the mistaken conclusion that the observer is separate from the observed.
“The Observer is the Observed.”
Prāṇa and Energy: A Teaching Correspondence
In my teaching, prāṇa and energy meet through attention to movement and living activity.
I use this correspondence as a contemplative lens. It is not a literal translation of prāṇa as “constant movement,” nor a derivation from Einstein’s mass–energy equation.
The point I want to emphasize is this: we understand energy through what it does—its effects and transformations. In the same way, the energy body is approached through felt activity and its expression in living.
Consider an acorn becoming an oak. In my elemental teaching lens, sunlight, air, water and earth give us a way to contemplate the conditions through which form unfolds. “Energy-in-Formation” names this contemplative perspective; the elements here are teaching correspondences.
Form is simply energy acting in a specific way.
This correspondence brings contemplative inquiry and attention to nature into conversation, while allowing each its own vocabulary and method.
We understand energy by what it does, rather than by imagining that a name contains what it is. This is the point of the correspondence I am drawing.
Individuality is Just “Debris in the Stream”
If we are all expressions of the same “river,” why do we appear so vastly different? This can be understood through the “twigs and leaves” caught in a whirlpool’s spin.
Just as one whirlpool might collect a specific branch or handful of leaves that give it a unique visible pattern, each human being carries a unique collection of memories, quirks, and genetic traits.
These elements create difference, but they do not create distance. A whirlpool with a twig is distinct from one without, but both are one hundred percent river.
This perspective allows you to cherish your unique human personality without the exhausting delusion of being disconnected from the Source.
The “Four States” and the Truth of “Am”
The Māṇḍūkya Upanishad explores waking, dreaming, deep sleep and what is called “the fourth.” My mapping of the Oṃ symbol offers a contemplative lens through which to approach these distinctions:
- Jagrat (Waking Consciousness): The “Gross Level.” This is the waker and the waker’s world of physical bodies in space and time.
- Swapna (Dream Consciousness): The “Subtle Level.” Here, form is purely mental—a dreamer and a dreamer’s world.
- Sushupti (Deep Sleep): The “Causal Level.” Though experienced as a blankness, it contains the “seeds” of your manifestation and memory.
- Turīya (Symbolized by the Dot): In my teaching lens, the dot is a symbolic pointer. The mark has a place in the image; it does not locate Awareness in space.
Turīya is called “the fourth” when viewed from the standpoint of the three changing statuses. It is represented by the silence or, symbolically, the dot associated with Oṃ. But from the standpoint of Ātman or Brahman, Turīya is not a separate fourth state or object; it is the ever-present Awareness that illumines waking, dream, and deep sleep.
Regarding OM: The curves, crescent, and dot may be used as a symbolic lens for teaching the relationship between experience and Turīya. But the symbol itself is anātman, known by Awareness. Turīya is Ātman when considered as the truth of the individual, and Brahman when considered as the limitless Reality of the totality. The difference is in the teaching standpoint, not in the Awareness itself. For the fuller discussion, see The Universe is Sounded Om.
Crucially, Turiya is not “I am” (the person), but simply “Am”—the pure, knowing quality that you exist.
This quality remains constant whether you are awake, dreaming, or in deep sleep.
Awakening is the realization that you are this underlying reality expressing itself through every state.
“Spiritual Awakening is the realization that you are Fully Human and Fully Spiritual.”
Conclusion: Returning to the Flow
The journey of awakening is a shift from identifying as a solitary, static “Noun” to identifying as the “Flow” itself.
Your existence is a sacred, three-stage process:
- Flow into Form: The emergence of your localized presence from the Source.
- Flow in Form: The dynamic, unfolding dance of your lived life.
- Flow out of Form: The graceful return to the unmanifest whole.
When the boundaries of the separate self are seen as the illusions of Maya, the struggle of the “individual” against the world ceases.
You are not a person fighting the current; you are the current itself, acting “you-wise” for a brief moment in time.
Movement belongs to appearance. Ātman, which is Brahman, is the Awareness in which movement and stillness are known. The distinction is in the teaching standpoint; what you are and how you appear are not-two.
Further Reading
The same riverside setting invites two further inquiries: Timeless Times explores priceless moments across a life, while Relationship: Welcoming, Listening and Love Lived explores how we meet one another and the world.
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