Allowing Yourself to Expand

If I say to you, “allow yourself to expand” or “imagine yourself expanding”, what do you do, what do you imagine? Do you imagine your body expanding? Do you imagine your senses expanding? Do you imagine your emotions expanding? Do you imagine your thoughts expanding? Do you imagine your awareness expanding?

Suppose that your body, your senses, your emotions, your thoughts, your awareness are all things with which you identify yourself—so that if you identify with your body, that’s what you expand, if you identify with your senses, that’s what you expand, and so on. But in all that identification and expanding, do “you” expand? Where are “you”? What are “you”? We say my body, my senses, my emotions, my thoughts, my soul, my spirit: but what about this “me”, this “my”, this “I”?

We allow ourselves to expand and yet we expand what we take to be ourselves at the moment, what we identify with at the moment. But do “you” really expand? What happens if you follow yourself back so that there’s just you-you, just I-I? What happens if you expand yourself as the observer, as the one who is aware, as the one who is present? What happens when you expand your “I-ness” rather than expanding your body, your emotions, your thoughts, or your awareness? What happens then?