Where Is My Mind? by Kathleen Sutherland

We spiritual seekers/finders are quite familiar with the concept that there is no time but the present. There is only now. A quick investigation brings us back to this truth when we stray. Can we find a past? Any purported history reveals itself to be nothing more than evidence of such in our present perception. The only time we have ever known or been able to find is now, fossils and dinosaur bones included. And the future is pure imagination. If and when it unfolds, it will manifest in the present moment.

But it seems a little trickier with location. Is it true that the only place is here? That would limit reality to this rather small room where I sit and the view through the windows. And yet investigation reveals that I have always been here. Just as with time, the scenery may change, but that doesn’t mean I’ve ever been anywhere but here. There seems to be only one spot, and I’m always there. I’ve never not been here. So just as there is only now, it seems there is only here.

You could counter, “That’s solipsism. You are limiting reality to the Kathleen version. I am over here, in another state, another room. I’m in a different location from you.” And yet I hear your argument here, in my room. And you read my argument there, in your room. Neither of us can be in the others’ room. For both of us, it’s only happening here. There is no evidence of any place but where you are. It’s like the ancient Roman general saying, of course there’s time, I existed long before you! But he didn’t; he only exists now.

You and I only exist here, and that is limited to what we perceive. We might argue that someone in a plane perceives much more than we do, has a much wider view. But where is that plane and that hypothetical viewer? Both are here, in our minds. And this reveals that our little worlds are not so little. We perceive all that we imagine!

In Sunday satsang (an online Zoom conference), we see a grid of windows with many different rooms. But they are all in our room, on our computer screen. We only imagine they are spread out over the world.

And how big is the world really? It seems that the world, like everything else, is here. It is here in my mind and your mind. And your mind and my mind are within Mind.

Just as there is no time, there seems to be no space. It’s all happening here. How elegantly efficient it is that reality doesn’t need to take up any space! We often call it the vastness, but it could as easily be called the infinitesimal. It all folds compactly into a tiny point of Mind, and it’s always right here, right where we are.

I can only conclude that we must be the one and only thing going on because I can think of no other place where it might be happening!

Kathleen Sutherland is enrolled in The Living Method Continuing Student Program and is editor of ACN. She lives in Iowa.