Do You Ever Really Go Anywhere?
An Exploration of How the World Moves Through Awareness, Not the Other Way Round
It occurred to me recently, while posting about my conversation with webinar participant, Pau — Here and Now: Portals to Eternity — that you might appreciate a further contemplation on the nature of experience.
This video, I Never Go Anywhere, is one of the earliest I shared on my YouTube channel. It was recorded during one of my first adventures with an early version of the iPhone, and it has a rather homemade feel – one of my first attempts at filming. But despite its modest appearance, it has remained a quiet favourite – in part, I think, because of the lively conversations it continues to inspire.
My intention in the video was to question some of the most familiar assumptions – in this case, the belief that you move through space from one place to another. But if you look closely, you may notice that all experience consists simply of the knowing of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures and thoughts. These are the only elements that ever appear in your awareness. So what are you actually experiencing when you say you’ve gone somewhere?
You may think you’ve travelled from home to work, or from one country to another – but what has really happened? Only a succession of perceptions has appeared: first the kitchen, then the street, then the office, or the coastline or the departure lounge. Each one arises in the same, unchanging field of awareness. It is the content that changes – not the place in which it is known.
Despite the appearance of travelling through time and space, your actual experience always unfolds here, in the motionless field of awareness. Sensations and thoughts flow through you, yet you never move. You do not pass through the world; the world passes through you.