We’ve talked about 1st-person/2nd-person/3rd-person experiencing of Spirit in general, cross-cultural, and, in the cases of 2nd and 3rd-person, external terms. These three models don’t stop existing in one who is fully conscious, they simply integrate within-and-as the person. Of course ego reasserts itself at every turn and so there are unhealthy versions of this as well. It is common for those who have experienced wholeness to trick themselves into believing they’ve been eternally transformed into wholeness. Let’s break these down so you can see what I mean. Don’t be surprised if you find some of this surprising.
3rd-person Healthy Version
Recall that the external 3rd-person experience of Spirit is as a “god out there.” God as an it, powerful and unrelatable. The healthy, internalized version of Spirit as it is speaking Truth while at all times understanding that the explanations are not the experiencing. Speaking Truth is necessary and yet to speak Truth is to kill it. Is to give form to formless awareness. Is to trap timelessness in time. Is to nounify action. This is what the kids call a necessary evil and it is just fine in such a one who unwaveringly understands this.
3rd-person Unhealthy Version
An example of 3rd-person integration gone wrong is mysticism. This is you continuing on with the illusion of identity because the pushback of time is so strong that it is always trying to anchor formless awareness within it. So, you continue to associate formless awareness with either a particular religion, which you call a mystical path, or with the term “mysticism” at large. Again, this labeling is giving form to the formless because time doesn’t just want the body within it, it wants everything. When you call yourself a mystic or talk about mysticism, you’re turning “I” experiencing into an “it” experience. Furthermore, unless you define the term, you’re unwittingly accepting and promoting the baggage of that word as if it all reflects your experiences. In that case, both you and your experiences become a blur of Truth and fiction, which equals fiction. You become a fiction to your audience. Being a mystery to people has its appeal. That appeal draws you back into time and into delusion.
2nd-person Healthy Version
Kundalini aliveness coexisting within and being you is a mouthful. It’s also the healthy, internal 2nd-person experiencing of Spirit. When the doer ceases, the body is now being. When the body is being, Being, with a capital B, maneuvers through and as the body/self in lieu of the ego. When we are kundalini alive, timeless Being uses archetypes as languages, or programs, amongst other forms of expressing, to revitalize us, transition us through growth, and keep us healthy. Like how in physics, wave/particle duality is the interfacing of nothingness and thingness, archetypes are an interface between nonduality and personhood.
2nd-person Unhealthy Version
When internal 2nd-person goes off the tracks it is usually due to a lack of clarity in what’s going on, such as believing that you are possessed, or a self-aggrandizement that leads to mistaking internal chatter or unconscious material of the still-divided mind as a channeling.
1st-person Healthy Version
Nondual consciousness as you.
1st-person Unhealthy Version
You pretending to be nondual consciousness. A god-man or enlightened one.