When we sing something with joy, or listen to a song or a beautiful piece of music, we often experience a merging into the harmony of the sound. If we love singing, we may occasionally experience a dissolution of our sense of being a separate person, when we are completely immersed in the beauty of the song. In these moments, who enjoys listening ?

When we sing, there is a union of the sounds that are being produced (the singing voice), with the mechanism that perceives these sounds (the hearing mechanism of the body and brain). The sound vibrations are generated and they stimulate the senses, physically passing through the body and processed by the brain.

We do not understand the mechanism, but we assume, that perhaps the joy we experience, is somehow produced by the neural connections, the chemicals flowing through the synapses in our organic brains? We assume that the sublime joy we experience is sensory and rooted in our body.

We believe that all we can know or experience, originates from the confines of our body-minds, seldom investigating or even considering, the possibility of anything beyond physical.

We do not understand why we enjoy music, how it transports us to the realms of unfathomable ecstasy, but we assume it must have a physiological and psychological basis. Often, this is our belief for every joy or sorrow that we know.

This is our automatic presumption, an unquestioned, unverified inference, unceremoniously superimposed on the divine joy that we experience- when we sing, or listen to a beautiful piece of music.

When we are fully immersed, absolutely engrossed in doing something, that submerges us into a feeling of bliss, we may encounter a dissolution of our sense of separate identity, into the fullness of the experience.

In the moments when we are fully involved in singing, completely one with the process, the singing and listening happen spontaneously. The various nuances of sound are naturally, effortlessly, aligned and integrated into a single unified experience of joy, bliss, happiness and oneness.

In these moments of total immersion, we are in a flow. Almost as if we do not sing at all, but the singing happens through us. We merely become an observer, a bystander caught in pure delight, simply letting the procession of sounds freely flow by!

The subtle fluctuations of the sound seep through our senses, fondling our depths. Our whole being is enveloped in an exhilarated rapture. We dissolve and disappear as an individual, in the felicity emerging from the movements of the sound! Who in these moments, enjoys the listening?

We may be surprised, at the beauty and joy that continues to bubble within us! Without our volition, we are perfused with a delicate bliss. We may witness the whole process with interest, floating on the current of the song, as it gently carries us along with its melodious ripples.

When we are flooded with happiness, there is only a quality of being present to this joy that freely and spontaneously soaks our being! There is a receptivity, an openness. We are completely available, to welcome the experience.

There is no eager grabbing, no imposition, no resistance or intrusion from the concepts of our thinking mind.

We are fully present to the gathering tide of joy, allowing our body-mind to deeply submerge in its awareness. But in the sense of an interference from the body-mind-ego construct, we are also completely empty and absent. In this ethereal flow, the singing happens and is deeply enjoyed. But there is no one who actively sings! So, who enjoys listening?

There is an obvious sublime ecstasy that is experienced in these moments. This joy is a reality of our experience, so obviously, we enjoy the listening! Our body-mind mechanism is involved in this experiencing, but only as an aid, a mere instrument. Our bodies are the essential tools, to receive and process the sound waves. But, the ultimate end point where the whole experience lands, the point where the bliss emerges, is not within the body or brain.

Just like when we take a picture with our phone camera, the light from the objects passes through and is processed into an image, that appears on the screen. But the machinery that generated it, does not see or enjoy the essence of what was captured. We, who are completely outside of the instrument, see and admire it.

The camera is essential to capture those images, but its mechanism cannot see them! The meaning, the beauty, the joy and true essence of those pictures is revealed to us. The seeing, understanding and admiring, happens completely outside of the mechanism that captured those images.

Just like the numerous images captured by a camera, all our diverse perceptions are filtered through our body-mind. But the body-mind mechanism does not experience the perceptions it captures, we do. The bliss and joy arising are not created by the body-mind. Then what is their source and who enjoys listening to our songs?

All our experiences descend upon our consciousness. They are revealed to our receptive, welcoming awareness. Each and every perception that we encounter, is received by this one centre. All the sounds, sights, thoughts, sensations, anything that can possibly arise in the body-mind, is ultimately received by this centre of awareness. This is our inner self, our core, our consciousness, the centre of our being.

This is the source of our wisdom, our presence. From here we understand and recognize. This space is where everything filtering through all our senses and intellect converges and clicks, where the flash of every insight leaps, where all our intuitions stir. This is the home to which all that we can ever know, always points to and returns.

This center is where we actually are, this is what we refer to, when we say, “I am”. This is what we point towards, when we refer to our real selves. This centre is the one, who enjoys listening! This may be clearly understood and obvious to us.

But, what may not be obvious is that this centre, this ultimate landing ground of all our perceiving-  is not personal to us. It is not isolated, separate or exclusive to us, as we may generally tend to believe. It is not rooted in our individual separate body-minds.

Just as one person can see and enjoy thousands of images taken by a thousand separate cameras, there is one consciousness, one awareness, one centre, that perceives and knows everything in existence. Every sound that has ever quivered, every vibration that has ever sprung forth in existence, lands here. There may be a billion songs- but they all land here and stimulate this one centre, one awareness, one consciousness.

This is the one common receiving ground for all the incoming perceptions, all the movements, all the vibrations and pulsations from everything that exists. This is our one common Self, our shared true nature, our universal home ground. Our one single perceiving reality.

This is that all-pervading stillness in which every movement of the isness stirs and every sound of existence vibrates. The one center of all that is, the source and substance of everything that was, is or ever will be! This is the blue sky of our pure presence, our pristine consciousness. This is where our causeless ever present happiness, continuously bubbles.

So, who enjoys listening? The centre, to which all of our experiences point. Not only the experiences from my personal body-mind-ego self, but from everyone and everything!

This centre is who, what and where we always are. This is the immediate location of all our being and knowing. For anyone who has ever known- “I am”-  that intimate knowing has always exactly and directly pointed to this one centre of being. This centre is the one and the same for all, for the whole of totality! The heart of our shared oneness.

There is only one centre. This is the centre of the whole manifestation. The paradox is, that this centre is all-pervading, it is everywhere, it is all that there is. The centre of your being-knowing is one and the same, as the centre of mine! Each one of us knows this centre intimately as our own awareness, our own consciousness, our own reality.

This is the point where all the sensations, perceptions and experiences collected by the individual instruments of our apparently separate body-minds, effortlessly connect and converge into oneness. This is our one true being, our common reality, our shared essence!

That space, where anything that arises or moves, every pulse and vibration in existence is received. That open, welcoming, receiving ground for every perception, every sensation that can ever be known or experienced.

This is the source from which everything emerges, and flows. It is also that eternal timeless destination, into which everything concludes. The beginning and the end of everything! This is the simultaneous-synchronous here and now of everything everywhere, in the timeless infinity of the totality.

This presence- as our centre, shared awareness, universal consciousness, oneness, perceiving reality and our being as the whole totality-  is the only one, who sings all our songs and the one who enjoys listening to them!