Who is observing?

The one I am looking for is the one who is doing the looking.

Ok. I have alluded to a future post, one in which I would be offering my thoughts on the internal theatre that takes place within each of us. You know how we have these inner observations and there is someone talking and someone listening, or someone doing something and someone watching. (If you don't do this, that could either be really great or really scary.) But assuming you do --

That someone is you, right?

Right? I don't know, but it seems that I have always had these private observations. I have always had a movie of sorts playing on the screen of my mind, and I am able to see it, modify it at will, and/or discuss what it is happening on that screen with myself. It feels just like being the director of a film. I love it! I have a vivid imagination anyway and I recently posted the transcript of a dialogue in which I was supposedly talking with God. Was I? Am I crazy? My wife loves me the way I am, so I am sworn to secrecy on that subject. :)

Before we dive in, I'd like to start with a definition of the "observer effect." This is central to the perspective I am presenting as it relates to what goes on inside of every living human being:

Observer effect --
From Wikipedia:
In experimental research, the term observer effect refers to changes that the act of observing will make on the phenomenon being observed. It has application in many fields of scientific inquiry, and may refer specifically to:
Observer effect (information technology), the impact of observing a process while it is running
Observer effect (physics), the impact of observing a physical system
Observer effect (psychology), how people change their behavior when aware of being watched

Are you still with me?

Ok. Let's consider an illustration and see if we can relate: If I am having a thought and there is a visualization of what that thought is about, who is the subject of that visualization and who is the one observing? Can it be that I am both? I mean, if I'm watching me do something in my mind, and in my mind, I'm the one I am watching, how can it be that I am both? Think about it.

Here's something else to consider: You've, no doubt, heard the famous phrase by Descartes, "I think, therefore I am." Well, I have come to believe that I am, therefore I think. We all think. I think, you think, we all think of world peace... or some children's song like that.

You're thinking, but you are only observing your thoughts. You are not your thoughts. When you are doing something and consciously thinking about what you are doing, you are only observing... you are not your body which is doing the thing.

Does that make sense?

Yet another way to frame it might be to consider that some of us picture God observing our every action in judgement. We sometimes feel watched as we do something. And we are thinking about the fact that we are being watched, and so because we are being watched, we act differently than we might otherwise? If you are following me, then you may recall times when you were thinking about that fact that YOU were watching what you were doing so you acted differently. Are you your Conscience? Are you God? Are you the hall monitor for your ever-wandering thoughts?

What happened? Did he change subjects? Yes... you caught me, I've change directions. But this is very important: God is not the only observer. God is all things, and by nature, in all things and he/she does not wait in judgement to pounce on us when we mess up. Many of us are coming to understand this. It is God and God in us that compels us to right thought and action as we evolve in Love. Love is our teacher and guide. God is love, and if we desire it, we are continually expanding in that love. We are becoming like God in the way we observe, when we observe in love... assuming we want to. We are becoming like God when we are consciously -- actively involved with our thoughts, words, and deeds.

For you conservatives that are hearing the other voice in your head, don't listen. I am not speaking in contradiction to Scripture. Christ was in God and God was fully in him, and he prayed the same for us. I'm pretty sure when he prayed about something, it got done. So, open your mind and accept the fact that you are responsible for every thought, word, and deed that you create. That makes you responsible for the world you create for yourself and those close to you. God had the same responsibility when creating us. We are created to operate in like manner, so the sooner we learn to deal with it the better. Think about it. God is ok with us thinking about those kinds of things. It's the way we are wired, so God has to relate.

My friends, we are now living in the embryonic awareness that we are really supposed to think like God. Not that we haven't, down through history, thought like God. It's just that we are now observing it as it happens. The paradigms of time and space seem to operate in subtly different ways as we move closer to our collective awakening. Things move faster and take place at a quicker pace than at any other point in recorded history. Technology is screaming at us to see how connected we all are to God AND to each other. We text, IM, e-mail, voice mail, surf, search, "Google" even -- all the while missing the fact that we are being RE-connected by the same technology that many of us hide behind.

Beloved, lift up your head! Get out in front. Get your eyes off the monitor and your ears out of the ipod and OBSERVE!

The one I am looking for is the one doing the looking. Think about it.

God, I love you!

Peace -- jb