An analogy that might interest some

[Erock]

Awhile back, while eating a bag of potato chips (actually I'm not sure if it was potato chips), I became very conscious of the swallowing process. For some reason, from that point on, I could not shake the acute awareness every time I swallowed. After a day or two of this, the timing of my swallowing got off and it started to hurt a lot. I kept thinking, this is so stupid, because my swallow-consciousness had turned into an actual injury, so then, every time I swallowed, even if I didn't think about it, the pain would remind me. I knew I had to dis-identify with the swallowing process so it would become unconscious again, but the pain kept bringing it back into my awareness.

I'm not exactly sure how I recovered from this, but I remember that I accepted the pain and tried to bring my focus off of swallowing every time I ate. Eventually it worked-the pain went away, and my swallowing became completely unconscious again.

Afterward, while reading I Am That, Maharaj says something like "I've swallowed up the world and I'm done with it." Right then it hit me that the rest of the world is exactly like swallowing, if I identify with it and become acutely conscious of it, it will bring me pain and suffering, but if I completely let it go and let it become an unconscious process I can be free of the pain it causes.

The tricky part is that I was only conscious of swallowing for a day or two, I've been conscious of my body and the world for much much longer. I think this process is like kicking the ultimate addiction.

Erock