Day One

Consciousness is endlessly fascinating. It’s infinite and free – free from anything – free from any boundaries. Free, free, free!

The first day of the retreat and here we are, almost 250 of us, listening to Andrew introduce the 10 days together. After some practical points about how to make best use of this time, Andrew launches straight into talking about consciousness. We all use the word ‘consciousness’, but what on earth does it actually mean to us in our own experience?
Without employing any spiritual terminology and without asking us to believe anything at all, he just points us to look freshly into the nature of our own experience as he speaks. What immediately becomes apparent is that we can’t get outside of consciousness and see it – it’s not an object. It’s unlike anything else at all and it is impossible for it to be an object in our mind. Consciousness is the subject. That’s the first key point he makes. It’s simple but it’s immensely profound
It takes a little contemplation to let in the significance of this, because many of us tend to feel we already know this sort of thing. But as Andrew emphasizes, if you really do know the absolute dimension of consciousness, then your life would have to be a radically transformed one.
Andrew leads us into exploring what consciousness is, and what are its qualities. And these qualities start to emerge as we begin to focus on its nature.
It’s unfamiliar to hear consciousness being described in such an experiential way, and as he keeps speaking, the intensity of this sense of pure subjectivity becomes magnified in the room. Thoughts and feelings move naturally into the background as the collective intention of the room focuses on consciousness itself, and it moves to the foreground of our attention. Everything is an object except this. It sounds simplistic and even strange, but just to contemplate this point, really has a fundamentally ground shifting effect on my sense of myself. The atmosphere in the hall becomes so charged and permeated with this unfamiliar and yet somehow immediately recognizable sense of pure consciousness, that it’s almost impossible not to be carried by it.
It is amazing how available and close at hand is this very powerful experience, as soon as we just shift our attention to the subject, to who is looking, and away from the habitual fixation on all the objects which arise in consciousness. It’s us at our deepest level. Consciousness is primary – it’s the sense of ‘I’- not the personal I, the ‘I’ that has a gender and nationality and a particular historical background. This ‘I’ is way beyond all that and is clearly identical for all of us. It’s deeper, in fact as deep as it’s possible to go, unfathomable.
At the end of a morning in which I was left wondering what on earth had hit me – I felt almost drowned in a sea - Andrew instructs us to keep giving attention to the experience of consciousness until the late afternoon when we meet with him again.

This afternoon session is devoted to hearing about peoples’ discoveries and experiences, and as each person speaks, Andrew draws out the significant points and enables everyone to see and experience the different qualities of consciousness.
Being a Sunday in this famous pilgrimage site and monastery, the bells of the Basilica ring out loud periodically throughout the day. The ringing reverberates around the towering rock faces of the mountain of Montserrat. But interestingly it is no distraction and only seems to intensify the experience of consciousness. The ringing resounds in consciousness and I am more acutely aware of its infinite nature which contains everything which arises and yet has no relationship with anything at all.
A multidimensional yet unitary picture of consciousness emerges with Andrew’s careful steering. People express how it is beyond boundaries; it has no relationship to anything and so its nature is inherently free. It is peace; it is ever-present; it has no desires or views and opinions and feels no fear; one of its qualities is also ecstasy, whether subtle or intense.
Andrew points out how the experience of pure consciousness or subjectivity is intoxicating. Focusing on it causes it to be experienced much more intensely and more deeply. I literally feel drunk with it as I write now. But it’s a diamond clear intoxication. It’s all a matter of what we give our attention to, and the choice is ours. When our attention is on consciousness, the separate self sense or ego fades into abeyance, and the inherent qualities of consciousness become very pronounced.
Consciousness just is. It doesn’t come from anywhere or go anywhere and has no relationship with anything, though everything arises in it. It is completely fascinating and though I was planning to just write what occurred on this extraordinary first day of the retreat with Andrew, I’m finding it impossible to do this in such a straightforward way right now. That’s because I’m discovering consciousness anew by focusing on it now as I write. And it is always the first time – ever new. So it’s hard to write only about the day. Consciousness is endlessly fascinating. Once you get a taste of it, there is nothing more fascinating. What is it that is so fascinating in always discovering it anew? Well, for a start, just that in itself is one reason. It’s infinite and free – free from anything – free from any boundaries. Free, free, free!
A fizzing sensation of ecstasy constantly pulsates in the background of my awareness.

Amazing! This is just the start of the retreat. At the end of the day, I feel like we have completed a whole retreat already. I’ve never seen a group of people go so far, so deep, so quickly, in all the retreats I have ever been on, and I’ve been to quite a number of them over the years.
When I think of it, we actually experienced enlightened mind, though Andrew never mentioned those particular words. We experienced the depths of meditation, though he never actually used the word meditation. This was also the classic Eastern enlightenment experience, though again there were none of those terms used.
In a remarkable way, it is very personal – for what could be more personal than the deepest subjectivity – but much more than that, it is completely impersonal. By focusing on individuals and drawing out the different qualities of their experience, the focus is on the qualities of consciousness itself, and not on the individual.