Beyond the Veil: Unveiling Spacious Awareness through VR
In the pursuit of nondual awakening, a fundamental step involves recognizing the boundless, spacious awareness that underpins all experience. This awareness transcends the limitations of the space itself, serving as the source from which attention flows, giving rise to the ever-shifting tapestry of shapes, colors, and objects within it.
The Veil of Local Awareness:
Imagine being fully immersed in a virtual reality world, oblivious to the physical headset strapped to your head. This headset, the interface between you and the digital world, represents your local awareness. It's the framework through which you perceive and interact with the simulated reality, forming the background of your virtual experience.
However, while you interact with the objects and characters within the VR world, you can never directly perceive the headset itself. It remains a hidden presence, an unknowable entity that facilitates your virtual existence.
The Interconnected Reality:
Now consider the intricate network that connects all VR headsets, creating the shared virtual space. This network, the cosmic awareness, transcends individual experiences, uniting them into a single, interconnected reality.
Just as you interact with other avatars unaware of their individual headsets, the different manifestations of self within the VR world relate to each other through their local awareness. They can never directly access the cosmic awareness, the overarching reality that binds them all together.
Nonduality and Bhakti:
Ultimately, there is no fundamental difference between the individual headset and the cosmic network. Both are essential aspects of the complete virtual experience, mirroring the inseparable nature of our local and cosmic awareness within our own reality.
However, for practical reasons, we differentiate between them. This differentiation, particularly at the initial stages of awakening to nonduality, allows the individual self (the avatar in the VR console) to engage in Bhakti, the practice of devotion and surrender to the cosmic awareness.
Through Bhakti, the individual self can experience a profound sense of relief and connection to the larger whole. This devotion and surrender serve as crucial tools on the journey towards realizing the ultimate nonduality, the understanding that both local and cosmic awareness are merely different facets of the same indivisible reality.
Call to Action:
The VR analogy offers a powerful lens through which to explore the concept of spacious awareness. It invites us to question the limitations of our individual perception and seek a deeper understanding of the interconnected nature of reality.
Continue your exploration by:
Reflecting on the analogy and its implications for your own understanding of awareness.
Engaging in practices like nondual meditations and mindfulness exercises by using apps like Waking Up by Sam Harris and Mindful Glimpses by Loch Kelly.
Exploring resources on Advaita Vedanta and Bhakti yoga. Great resource is Swami Sarvapriyananda from Vedanta NY.
By actively engaging with these practices, you can progressively unveil the boundless spacious awareness that lies beyond the veil of local awareness, ultimately realizing its inherent unity with the cosmic consciousness within you.