Suppose, for the purposes of the following investigation, that there is the horizontal plane as well as the vertical dimension. In this schema, “the horizontal plane” refers to the natural flow of objective experiences while “the vertical dimension” refers to Witnessing Consciousness.

Take a set of objective experiences like:

• Experience #1 (thought): “What a beautiful day.”
• Experience #2 (sensation): [Sensation of warmth]
• Experience #3 (sound): [Hearing the birdsong]
• Experience #4 (I-thought): “I don’t like this sensation of warmth; I need to get rid of it.”

Meanwhile, I am the Witnessing Consciousness to whom experiences #1-4 appeared.

What can be gleaned from this?

1. Begin by understanding that no objective experience actually modifies Witnessing Consciousness in any way. I, Consciousness, remain untouched.

2. Now notice that each experience comes and goes. When #1 is here, #2 is not; when #2 is here, #1 is not. This means in particular that when the sensation of warmth is here (#2), the I-thought (#4) is not here–and vice versa.

3. It seems as if experience #4 is different from #1-3–but are they? No, from the point of view of Witnessing Consciousness, each experience is appearing in My Light. Each is an objective experience for Me.

4. Turn now to the I-thought #4. An I-thought is actually just another experience appearing to Me, Witnessing Consciousness. As such, it is not different from the others (see Pt. 3). However, this I-thought (#4) believes that it has some control over another experience (#2). In fact, it doesn’t (see Pt. 2). Once it is understood that (a) an I-thought is, in actuality, no different from other experiences, that (b) an I-thought actually has no control over any other experiences, and that (c) this I-thought or that one is, like all other experiences, appearing to Me, the “illusion-effect” of I-thoughts goes away.

5. With what result? With the result that I, Witnessing Consciousness, remain Myself. No further I-thought–like a notion of doership–arises (call that Experience #5) with the view to being a ‘good spiritual practitioner’ and thus with ‘having to remove’ or ‘see through’ these I-thoughts ‘before’ there can be ‘Self-realization.’ No, this I-thought is as innocent as any other objective experience. Understood as such, it’s simply allowed to be, to flow, to follow its own course until it naturally falls away. I, Awareness, don’t even ‘think’ to bat an eyelash.