# Two planes of existence By [Vaiva](https://paragraph.com/@vaiva) · 2023-11-27 --- I am constantly living on two different planes of existence. I used to think that my brain was bipolar because I could hear opposing thoughts constantly running through my head. That was until I started meditating and reading spiritual texts. I realised, that within each of us, there is the human consciousness that is a product of our environment, our conditioning, our traumas and desires, our insecurities and our neurosis and there’s also the other type of consciousness which is spacious, non-judgemental, the observer part which I like to imagine as something that is outside of my body, yet never going away from me. It’s like a warm cloud that covers you wherever you go. We have the capacity to access each level of consciousness on demand. However, there is great dissonance between the two. It unnerves us to hear each level of consciousness present itself. It can feel disorienting if your meditation practice is new. Yet once you start opening up the veil of your human consciousness, the higher consciousness pierces through. The light starts to shine in. There is more air for breath. And more space. How does it present itself? The higher consciousness, the non-humanly consciousness, some like to call it your soul or your higher self - I haven’t decided on the name for it that wouldn’t make me cringe a bit, it sees your suffering, acknowledges it and calls it grace.  It’s the most bizarre concept to a human. It’s also one of the most brutal concepts for a human mind to accept. The first line of defence always shouts back -‘How can all of these brutalities that are happening to innocent people be called grace?’. I couldn’t understand for a very long time. The first time I went into a bible study group, I was about 12 years old. I remember hearing the teaching on Jesus turning the other cheek for somebody who is hitting you. I remember feeling infuriated by it. ‘How could you just surrender yourself to abuse? Would that not make you a wet cloth that everybody steps on? What kind of life would that be? I certainly don’t want to be stepped on in life.’ These were my thoughts for years. I was continually curious about the other realms of being yet never wanting to surrender to human comfort. I thought that I could become spiritual and also be ‘the smart one’ who figured it out without falling on her face or hurting. I desperately tried to avoid suffering, seeking more pleasure in the hope that I could ‘make it’. HA! What foolishness. And I’m not saying that from some self-righteous place, don’t worry, I still know pretty much nothing and fall within old patterns all of the time, however, now I have had experiences of opening my human consciousness veil, taking it off and surrendering to the spiritual consciousness. And once you have an experience such as this, whether that’s through a meditative practice, through prayer, intense physical state (running, dancing/ having sex) it doesn’t matter, a method is just a method of unveiling yourself, you’re forever changed into knowing that there is another part of you, a much bigger part of you who is simply observing it all. That higher part of you is neutral, it doesn’t experience emotion like you do. There is no categorisation of good and bad, happy or sad, right and wrong, there is simply expansion through your physical experience. If you’re happy, ecstatic even, that higher part is not, it knows that your happiness will pass. If you’re sad, in great despair even, the higher part of you is not- it says ‘Ahh, here comes sadness’ and watches the emotion arrive in your body like a wave forming in the sea until it deflates, collapsing back into serenity. Nothing that your physical body can experience shocks your higher self. You might lose a toe, break an ankle, have a headache, or have ecstatic pleasure- none of it is new to your higher self. Your higher self is like an old grandma who has a peaceful smile on her face. She has seen it all. She knows it all. She is not surprised by anything. She is wise. She knows that your life is constantly changing, there are new characters added to the movie your life, there are plot twists and turns, there is elation and despair yet she is watching it all from afar, unaffected by any of it. The first time I experienced the duality of these two levels of my existence my physical self was suffering greatly, I labelled myself depressed because I saw no joy in anything that was happening in my life. That night I was crying so hard, it felt like the sensation of my sobs could tear me from the inside out. And then I started laughing in the middle of it. Really hysterically laughing. I got scared. I thought I was going mad. Surely laughter is a sign of happiness and I was nowhere close to being happy so how could my body just start laughing? I couldn’t understand it. I started breathing more deeply and listening to what my body and mind were saying. And a new voice crept in. There was this thought: ‘Ahh, doesn’t feel good to experience such a deep level of despair?’ Good? Are you joking? How could it feel good, it’s horrible, what are you talking about? ‘Imagine a state of being where this level of despair is impossible to feel out’. Hmm, I stopped spiralling for a moment and visualised a space where suffering was impossible. Where one simply couldn’t feel the sensation of a heartbreak. Where your guts couldn’t twist around in what feels like a knot inside of you and in that moment I had the most profound realisation that I would trade everything I have, including my own existence, so that at least once I could have the human sensations. And that doesn’t mean that from that point of realisation, I stopped feeling pain or suffering. Oh god no, I feel it every day. But. Now I know, that this experience of suffering is grace too. --- *Originally published on [Vaiva](https://paragraph.com/@vaiva/two-planes-of-existence)*