A Place with no Origin

Notes on a presence that doesn't fit into words, an experience impossible to repeat and impossible to forget

Yakov Knyazev

If I were to write about a memory—one that left a formless but persistent mark—it would not be to construct a narrative of self-knowledge or to teach anything. It would simply be to bear witness to a moment when everything that sustained my idea of reality fell apart, not in chaos or collapse, but in an enveloping silence.

There was no external scene. Nothing happened in the eyes of others. But inside, what I called “me” ceased to make sense, dissolved abruptly. The central reference disappeared. Body, identity, thought, everything was suspended, as if the backdrop had been pulled away and what remained was not emptiness, but what had always been there, but had never been noticed, sometimes, very rarely, sensed.

For a while, I tried to repeat the experience, I wanted to return to that place. I hadn't understood that there is no “returning” to what never went away. The more I sought it, the further I moved away. The search is the restlessness of the ego. Presence, when perceived, does not respond to this command.

Later on, I began to recognize a pattern. It did not come as an answer, a result, or a reward. It appeared when the structure of the “I” failed in the face of fear, exhaustion, an extreme situation, a real surrender. It was not expansion, it was dissolution, and along with it, a raw, sharp, impersonal, and precise lucidity.

It is not about being connected to the whole because there is no separation. The idea of a self here and something greater out there is just an idea, an inference. What exists is a continuous functioning of which we are a part, but which does not begin in us nor end in us. Life does not happen “for” us. Life lives through us.

Somehow, we know this, we recognize it immediately when distractions cease. It is not a memory, it is not a concept, it is not a belief. It is closer than our own body. Quieter than thought. A stable, immovable, intact background, even when everything around it moves. Imagine the bottom of the sea, which is not shaken by the current on the surface. Or the rock in the middle of the river, motionless, even when all the force of the water passes over it.

This presence does not need to be cultivated, nor does it need to be explained. It already is. What covers it is not ignorance, but the constant noise of identity, of the “I” we think we are, trying to assert itself all the time. We are not separate from the whole, but we are also not connected. We are temporary expressions of something that has no form or time. What changes is attention. When it shifts from the character to that which sustains everything, recognition happens quickly, rawly, and unquestionably.

It is quite common to confuse this with altered states or “mystical” experiences. Many people seek shortcuts, gurus, substances, practices, techniques. Some tools open space, others distort. Recreational drugs increase noise, giving a false sense of expanded consciousness. It is not. It is alteration. Earth medicines and power plants can open gaps, but what really breaks the structure is not the substance, it is the collapse of control. It is when the self loses control and something deeper takes over, not as an agent, but as the basis of everything.

Consciousness is not a state to be sought or achieved. Consciousness, with a capital C, is everything. It embraces everything. Including the feeling you get when reading these words. From somewhere, where, in theory, your attention resides.

The word “conscious” can also refer to the simple fact of being awake, attentive. But I am not talking about that state here. I am talking about a Presence that is perceived in the surroundings. That is heard, that is felt on the skin, outside and inside. A place that is not accommodated behind the eyes or between the ears, as we imagine when thinking and directing our lives. Consciousness already IS.

Consciousness is not a special experience. It is what makes all experiences possible. It is what remains when the effort ceases and when the “I” that wants to understand, feel, evolve, disappears. What remains is not emptiness. It is what has always been here: motionless, silent, nameless. The bottom of the sea, the rock in the river. The point is simple, but uncomfortable: as long as the “I” is in charge, trying to understand, control, or lead, that other place remains inaccessible. But it is not because it is far away, but because the movement of seeking is already an obstacle.

Being present, wholly, without defense, without narrative, without expectation, is perhaps the only real gesture. And perhaps it is not even a gesture, but simply a withdrawal from excess, an emptying of effort. A cut in the flow of the self.

When the “you” ceases to occupy the center, what emerges is not a grandiose vision. It is the obvious that has always been here, but that the ego does not allow us to see.

“Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.”

―Jeff Lebowski (The Dude)