A Short Story of No Story

Imagine all the memories you can recall, and that you can gather them together into a collection called, “My Past”.  Recall them in quick slideshow fashion, or many of them, because there are too many to remember all at once.  But let these stand for every bit of past experience you’ve ever had since you were born.  

Now, odd as it sounds, consider how much (if any) actual, physical weight each thought or memory has and you realize they’re not much more than little wisps.  They’re like the idea of tiny fireflies, much too small to even be fireflies.  Now imagine holding the entire memory collection in the palm of your hand and then gently pouring it like a fine, weightless powder into a small box with an opened lid.  Once the last bits drift down into the box, gently close it up, and set the box aside for just a moment.  Your entire past is safely kept in that little box.

Now, do likewise with all the wishes, dreams, concerns and thoughts you can imagine about the future.  You'll find them in that special area of daydreaming called, “My Future”.  You’ve made some plans, and you have some hopes.  There are some worries, some deadlines and some expectations - of your own and those that others have of you.  Try to mentally review as many of these as you can, and as you do, consider the minuscule physical sense of each one.  Collect these all together in the palm of your hand and gently pour them into another small box and carefully close the lid on it.

Next, imagine standing and holding one box in each hand, arms a little extended about waist high.  In imagined stillness, you can feel the lightweight boxes, so rather than looking down at them, you look straight ahead at a vast emptiness - a distant fogginess with nothing at all to focus on.  It’s so much like the same view of the inside of your eyelids, that you’re not sure if your eyes are open.  Yet, out of your lower peripheral vision, you are vaguely aware that there is a small table standing right in front of you, also about waist high.  And, it reminds you that you’re still holding the two boxes.  Reflexively, you set the boxes on the table and then let your arms rest at your sides, and resume your distant gaze at the dimensionless depth.  

You don't remember moving but somehow you are now sitting comfortably, and the table must have been moved because you have a full view, looking out at nothingness and you are just you, without your past and your future.  The contents of those boxes made up the story of who you are and they've been set aside and so you are sitting there without even a story and it’s perfectly still and comfortable, and you’re aware without a story there is nothing that needs to be thought about.  Your sense of time seems to have been misplaced with the boxes, and you are content to just be there, or here, or wherever this is doesn’t even matter.  All you are actually aware of is that you are breathing and even that is automatic, regular, relaxed.  You gradually lose awareness of your body, your mind drifts elsewhere, almost like you’re having a dream while you’re awake.  Your body isn’t numb, you’re just not sure if it is still there or if it has somehow become part of the vastness before you and around you.  It doesn’t seem to matter either way, because your attention is compelled by the utter, empty stillness! There's nothing interesting at all about it, there's just nothing at all, period.  Before you had emptied your past and future into those boxes, you never had a chance to do much besides think about, and rethink about, your story.  Now, without your story, you are actually beholding "nothing" and in a kind of ridiculous way, it's fascinating.  A slight smile comes with the thought there's really nothing quite like "nothing".  Or, no thing is like....whatever, there's no meaningful way to describe nothing.   Words begin to seem heavy and awkward and really, beside the point, if there is one.

There was actually a lot of weight in those boxes.  Even though they were small and seemed very light, as soon as you set them down, a lot of body heaviness left with them and you now feel lighter than you ever have before.  It's a delightful, liberating feeling.  Without a story and a body weighing you down, you could even be floating.  You wonder, what's left of me?  And the question answers itself because you're aware that you are left only with awareness.  It’s not awareness from the senses, because you’re not seeing or hearing or feeling anything.  And yet it’s like you have all that and more.  Much more.  It is more than enough to fill you, it is you.  You don’t have awareness, you are awareness!  It is you, and it is without or beyond time or limit and it is life itself and it is everywhere and you are it... .  .   .   .    .     .      

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Some people dismiss these kinds of ideas with the comment, “it’s just imagination.”  They will also have stopped reading before now, if they ever found their way here in the first place.  But, if these imaginings seemed vaguely or slightly real to you, it wasn’t "just" your imagination.  It was/is an actual awareness in you that was reawakened and that is often left in a forgotten or overlooked corner of "imagination".  This was no story, the story is in the boxes.


p.s.  If you have never heard Eckhardt Tolle talk, nor read his books, this video is worth taking in, many times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvZs35QPXz4&context=C4618aa7ADvjVQa1PpcFNHAbIVMaiy6TbnKU4_3U4p1MWvr6nTe5I=