How Luminous Absorption Can Change the World

As I see it, the experience of luminous absorption reveals our True Self and the True Nature of existence at the same time.

We’ve been taught that we live in a reality of three-dimensional space filled with solid material things that change over time. This things-in-space view of reality has become the foundation of our perception. We see and interpret everything through this lens.

This is the bottom-line metaphor of our current paradigm. It isn’t wrong, but it is limited. In some ways it’s a very useful way to think, in other ways it’s not useful at all, and can even be dangerous.

The things-in-space assumption is the basis of a materialistic worldview that easily leads to utilitarian and consumeristic ways of life. Many of the greatest problems in the world occur because of the human tendency to see everything in terms of how it can be used or consumed.

The experience of luminous absorption occurs when we let go of the idea that we are a thing that exists in space. At that instant it becomes obvious that although we are aware of being a thing, we are not the thing, we are the awareness that is aware of it.

From this vantage point we begin to see that the origin of existence is a self-luminous awareness, and if we have the chance to rest in that recognition, we become more and more infatuated with it. We had always experienced ourselves as a tiny conscious being in a vast universe, but now everything is different. The universe itself is aware, but it is not a thing that is aware, it is simply an awareness.

In the experience of luminous absorption, we become captivated by the possibility of experience without an experiencer, a dream without a dreamer, vision without eyes.

This experience is endlessly mesmerizing. You simply cannot get used to it. You cannot get bored with it. It cannot become mundane. In this state of luminous absorption all you can do is SEE because SEEING is all there is.

As we rest longer and longer in this miracle there is a deepening sense of coming home. This pure awareness is what we were before we were born. This is what we will be after our lifetime on Earth comes to an end. This is who we really are.

The experience of luminous absorption liberates us from exclusive identification with the body and personality of this single lifetime. We now know that we are vast and mysterious, eternal and infinite, and glorious beyond imagination.

This universe is a cosmic being and that being is who we are. We are embodied in human form and this human birth is certainly real and important. And at the same time, our life on Earth is part of the larger evolution of the universe as a whole.

From this heightened sense of self, our true creative capacities emerge. We have the power to create at deeper levels of reality than we ever imagined. So much of what we thought was fixed and beyond our control, is not. Reality itself is more malleable and open to influence than we ever dreamed.

Grounded in the experience of luminous absorption, it becomes possible for us to creatively illuminate new possibilities. We can use our liberated inner vision to imagine the unimaginable and begin to articulate it into existence. We can author new realities and if there are enough of us, we can change the world.