* We go in search of our true self, the spirit/soul within us, by experiencing it directly * Who are we beyond our imagination? * What is observing awareness? * And what is beyond? *
In the beginning there was an unconscious unity of existence with the universe. Then came the consciousness of the body, and with it the consciousness of the "I am" - the observing consciousness that experiences the world with innocent curiosity. And as time went on, more and more layers were added to your true self, beliefs, ideas about who you are and who you should be. An image of 'self' has emerged, a phantom that has lost touch with its true self and has fallen into a dreamlike stupor as a confused little self, living in doubt and suffering.
If you lose your idea of yourself, you will find yourself
Many people, when asked, "Who are you?" tell long and complicated stories about their perceived selves: stories they have learned or developed within themselves about who they are and who they want to be. "Ah... you know, it's a long story of who I am", they say - "I was born then and there, I looked like this as a little kid, then I went to school here and there, I started working, I started a family, this is my husband, my kids, aren't they cute? I had and still have such and such difficulties in life. And now, here I am: a 35-year-old woman, I look like this, I have such and such illnesses, I'm employed, I'm a mother, I'm a Christian and..."... and their story is unfolding unstoppably.
They unconsciously identify themselves even with their status, jobs, assets, bank deposits, cars, real estate, as an extended "self", so if they fear losing any of these, they feel deeply that they are losing themselves. For who would I be if I didn't have the wealth, I have diligently accumulated for myself, if I didn't have the job I have worked hard at, if I didn't have the social position I was born into or acquired, if I didn't have the title I have learned a lot for, and who would I be if I lost my house, my car? I would certainly be destroyed, I would become "nothing"... I would not exist without them.
This complicated story of the self, the things we own, the individual life path, the individual experiences, make us so unique that our Earth is currently home to 7 billion separate, alienated universes, unable to understand each other, generating countless disputes, animosities, hatreds. But look into it, go deeper and deeper into your true self: Are you really nothing but your body, your emotions, your thoughts, your life story, your career, your possessions? If you were not exactly 35 years old, would you exist? If you were not a woman but a man, would you exist? If you didn't have a job, assets, would you even exist as a homeless person? Of course, they would, many people would say, and they would think that in different circumstances, but they would still exist: they would have a body, they would think, they would feel emotions - and that is what they call "I".
But are you really the sum of your body, thoughts and emotions? It's a scientific fact that in less than a year, 98% of the atoms in your body are replaced. Our bodies are constant, yet they are in a constant state of flux. And what is not constant, but constantly changing, cannot be the constant "I" that exists from birth.
Maybe you are the sum of your feelings and thoughts? Because you are constantly feeling emotions and a multitude of thoughts are going through your mind. But these emotions and thoughts are not constant either: they come and go, giving way to new thoughts and emotions. They are constantly changing: your thoughts and emotions as a child were very different from what they are now in adulthood. Our emotions and thoughts are not permanent either. However, what we call the "I" exists all the time: from infancy to death you know that you "are", that you "exist". Who is this permanent "I"?
"I am"
There is something eternal about you. When you were born, and you had no thoughts or ideas about yourself or the world, you existed. As a child - when your world was a constantly renewing magic (and not at all like your world now), you existed. As a hot-headed teenager, you wanted to change the world, to conquer everything and everyone (and you're not like that anymore), well, you existed then. You changed the cells of your body several times in your life; the complexity and depth of your emotions changed, your thoughts and belief systems were completely renewed, but there was something about you that never, ever changed. It was always the same and it remained the same, no matter what you learned or imagined about yourself. Even as an infant or a dying old man you know: you exist, you are. There is something inside you that says, "I am". It is a simple feeling, not learned, but innate: you are, you exist, unquestionably. The statement "I am" is the only statement that is absolute truth. And the awakening to the knowledge of "I am" opens up the most mysterious dimension of our existence.
How can you experience the knowledge of "I am"? Initially, you may wonder what this statement "I am" might mean. You formulate it, you say "I am", and then you realize "Gee, I really exist!". And when you have deeply lived, experienced the awareness of "I am, I am, I am", you no longer contemplate it, but let go of the thought and you are left with the awareness of the feeling of "I am-ness". Let yourself go into this awareness of "I am" and you will understand the dizzying depth behind the concept that our thoughts label as simply cliché, beyond the thoughts!
I offer you a meditation, an exercise to do:
Get comfortable and relax. Take a few deep breaths and listen to the airflow: as it enters and leaves your nostrils. Relax! Listen to the feeling of "I am" within you. Know that the consciousness of being has always been with you - there has never been a time when you did not exist. This "I am" awareness will accompany you throughout your life. Pay attention to your awareness of your being, feel that you are. If you are disturbed by any thought or feeling, remove the feeling or thought and return to the root of the 'I am' feeling. Return constantly to the awareness of 'I am' and reject any content that appears in your mind. If you say "I am an accountant, I am a secretary, I am a manager, I am a mother", know that all of these are illusions - you exist beyond the roles you have taken on, or, you simply exist beyond all your roles. If you didn't have the role that is your role, you would still exist. Go back to your sense of being, that is the only certainty, everything else is an acquired and temporary identification. Turn all your attention to the feeling of "I am", which is a timeless presence. When you spend time in the awareness of 'I am', you enter a state that cannot be described in words, only experienced.
You exist, you are here and now, focus on that!
It is this "I am" that looks out through your eyes, and it is you who look at the world. It is It who moves your hands, your feet, who breathes, understands your thoughts, feels your emotions. Don't ask, don't seek an explanation of who and what you are: you are who you are, an eternal mystery, an existence, the embodiment of life itself. Turn your attention from experienced to experience! Which is more important: the ever-present experiential witness or the ever-changing experience? Discover yourself through the sense of "I am". You are, you exist, turn your attention to the awareness of your existence. Hold the feeling of "I am" in your mind, merging with it until your mind and feeling become one. Feel your being, your presence.
In the Bible, God answers Moses' question, "I am Who I Am. The I Am has sent me to you". "Be still and know that I am your God". Knowing "I Am" is the way to eternity.
Going deeper down the rabbit hole
When you are just aware of mere, unprogrammed existence, you are thoughtlessly feeling-knowing that you exist, you are, an observing consciousness is looking through you at yourself and the world. To say "I am", however, requires the body in which the sense of being "I am" resides and through which it experiences perceptions. It knows that it exists because it experiences through bodily, sensory being. What happens when you dive deeper into yourself, when you let go of the knowledge of the "I am"? You don't insist on experiencing yourself and the world, but you wonder what is beyond the experience. You are simply letting go of your attention, and going deeper into the real you: where there is no longer necessarily an attentive sense.
When you succeed in letting go of your "I am" awareness, your awareness of the world and yourself, you enter a kind of dreamless dream state. You are not asleep, yet you lack attention to self/world, you lack content arising in the space of attention - just as in deep sleep, in which there are no dream images. A totally elusive peaceful, blissful calmness comes over you. An impersonal emptiness in which there is only pure, absolute existence and nothing else. When a thought, or an emotion arising from a thought, appears, it is acknowledged and released - you do not become involved, but remain in yourself, in a state of emptiness unattached to perception. If any sensory perception appears, you notice it and for that flash of time return to attentive awareness, and in the pauses between perceptions return to the silence of emptiness.
This silence is different from the everyday conscious notion of 'silence': it is not a dead, soundless silence, but a far deeper 'something'. An emptiness that just is, peaceful, in a state of subtle "heaven". There is only this one peaceful emptiness, which we can identify as the impersonal God of Eastern religions and Western mystics: infinite, eternal, beyond time and space, peaceful, silent "being". There is only that and nothing else - everything that exists in it comes into being. As soon as he opens his perception to his "I" as a material form and to the world, so the sense-image of himself and the world as content is created in him. Just like the clouds that arise, transform and disappear in the pure nothingness of the sky. But as soon as he withdraws his perception from his bodily being and from the world, he plunges again into himself: into the original state of contentless, pure emptiness. There is a perfect term for this in English: "no-thingness" ("nothingness"). This is what some spiritual movements call the ultimate enlightenment - when existence returns to its pure Source.
Ultimately, this is what you are, the formless "I" beyond body, thought, emotion. A peaceful, silent presence, an existence that becomes conscious as soon as any form, content or sensation arises within it.
.. and back to everyday consciousness!
Something interesting happens as you come to this realization and return to your ordinary state of consciousness. You realize that your true "I" is a formless void, a nothingness that is the "parent" of everything, and as you return to your perception of the world as an observer witness, you may notice that something has radically changed within you: as embodied consciousness, you feel an all-encompassing love for the totality of existence. This is "different" from what is called "love" in the ordinary state of consciousness, there is no passion of varying intensity, but only an embrace of all forms to yourself - you love them because they are.
Because ultimately the creator, animator and essence of each form is the same One, indivisible "something".
Excerpt from the book "The Mysteries of Consciousness” by Ervin Kery