Vachon Imagined

The relationship with yourself is your own awareness.

You are walking in this awareness, and it gives you the ability to experience life in all its forms.

Last night, I was eating an ice cream cone.

You know the delicious one from McDonald’s.

I don’t require upscale ice cream. The one from McDonald’s, when their machine is working, is just fine for me.

And when it’s really cold—almost frozen, not yet super creamy—oh my God.

That is my jam.

That makes me happy.

Tasting the ice cream is an experience.

It is not awareness itself.

Awareness is what allows me to participate in the experience.

And when I am actually aware, it isn’t just me eating ice cream.

There is no real distinction between me and the experience.

I can suddenly see that I am connected to the person who made the ice cream, the person who delivered it, the person who stocked it, the person who handed it to me, the machine that made it, and yes, even the corporation that made it possible for me to stand there at 9:47 at night with a ridiculously satisfying frozen cone in my hand.

Thanks, McDonald’s.

You’re doing me a solid.

But the moment I believe I am somehow standing outside of God, something very strange happens.

Now the ice cream becomes good or evil.

And apparently the ice cream has to pay for my assumptions about it.

Think about the absurdity of this.

The ice cream is not sitting there thinking, I really hope this person has the correct theological position about me.

It is just being ice cream.

Living its best little igloo life.

And yet humans will take something that is simply existing and place judgment upon it.

Good.

Bad.

Pure.

Impure.

Healthy.

Unhealthy.

Worthy.

Unworthy.

And then, somehow, we imagine that our judgment has changed the thing itself.

It hasn’t.

It has only changed our experience of it.

This is what judgment does.

It creates separation where there is none.

You are walking in awareness.

You are already participating in life.

The ice cream is not outside of you.

You are not outside of it.

The person who made it is not outside of it.

The corporation is not outside of it.

The entire ridiculous chain of events that brought that frozen little cone into your hand is life happening as life.

Awareness allows you to experience this without needing to separate it into pieces and decide which piece is good and which piece is bad.

And when you experience life fully, you are not merely experiencing life.

You are alive.

Alive in awareness.

Able to experience life without judgment.

Without separation.

Even when the McDonald’s ice cream machine is working.

Which, frankly, may be one of life’s greatest miracles.