SPACIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS

One of spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle's favorite sayings is "Do I have the space for this?" i.e. does he have room in his consciousness for the event, person, or idea that he is currently facing?  

Consciousness being spacious is an unfamiliar idea until one begins to experience it this way.  Suddenly consciousness is like a vast horizon stretching as far as the eye, the mind, can see, where there are no boundaries.

This is called the superconscious in Vedanta and is described both negatively and positively.  Negatively, it is neither subjective not objective experience, neither consciousness nor unconsciousness, neither knowledge of the senses, nor relative knowledge, nor inferential knowledge.  Positively, it is pure unitary consciousness, ineffable peace, the Atman.

The broader, so-called background consciousness onto which, like a movie screen, one's life plays out, feels to some of us more like the Brahman, whereas the consciousness of the Atman feels close in, focused, intense, personal.  The Brahman is spacious, the Atman concentrated, even as they are both the same thing.