What do I want most?
To know who/what I really am,
to know my true Being, the true Self.
If we don't know that, then everything else is meaningless.
Imagine a crazy man, who thinks he is a chicken.
He may be a billionaire, but it means nothing to him,
being resigned to scratch around his chicken coop eating bird seed.
Our true wealth may be too great to imagine.
Mark 8:36-37:
What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?
Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
John 3:7:
You must be born again.
Exodus 3:14:
I AM THAT I AM.
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Are you sure about that?
You must be thoroughly convinced that you are not really who you
think you are, especially if finding out who you REALLY are
is supposedly your number one priority.
Do you honestly feel that baffled about who/what you really are?
Settle in on the basic facts of your own experience.
You know intuitively that "what-you-are" IS "what's looking".
This "what's looking" is your innermost being, whatever that is.
You may feel it in your gut, in your bones.
But WHAT that is, is hard to say. It's awareness itself, but what is
awareness? It seems invisible, formless, non-locatable exactly.
That is the mystery -- what is this awareness.
And maybe it's okay not to know, maybe it's okay that it is an utter mystery.
It's still here, as plain as day. It's still what-we-are, what's looking.
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So based on your own basic intuition and investigation,
you may know and accept beyond a doubt that what-you-are
is "what's looking", or awareness itself, as your innermost being.
But there is usually the added assumption that this light of awareness
"comes from" someplace limited to your body or brain.
And there usually doesn't seem to be any reason
to doubt that or to assume otherwise.
It seems obvious, since all you are ever aware OF
is from the perspective of your body.
This is the crux of the matter -- where this light of awareness
really "comes from", what is its source.
It seems so obvious for so long that it must be coming from your body/brain,
that to consider any other possibility seems patently absurd and ridiculous.
But upon honest, open investigation, you may notice that your awareness itself
does have a formless non-locatable quality about it.
That may be enough of a spark of curiosity to interest you in continuing
investigation into this plain light of awareness itself and where it is
coming from. This is a form of meditation, or self-enquiry.
This is where the seeds of doubt may be sown,
to at least slightly doubt that your awareness is really "coming from" your body,
and to be honestly open-minded to the possibility of discovering a
deeper truth about where it's really coming from and about who-you-are.
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So what does it matter? Why bother?
Does a corrected understanding of "what-you-are" really change anything?
Yes and no.
Motivational promises:
From your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.
Peace. Bliss. Perfect contentment. Absolute happiness.
Stillness.
Some things Nisargadatta said:
You cannot be conscious of what does not change.
All consciousness is consciousness of change.
Changes are inevitable in the changeful, but you are not subject to them.
You are the changeless background, against which changes are perceived.
Realize that whatever you think yourself to be is just a stream of events;
that while all happens, comes and goes, you alone are,
the changeless among the changeful, the self-evident among the inferred.
Separate the observed from the observer and abandon false identifications.
There must be some constant factor bridging the gaps in consciousness.
If you watch carefully, you will find that even your daily consciousness
is in flashes, with gaps intervening all the time. What is in the gaps?
What can there be but your real being, that is timeless?
The succession of transient moments creates the illusion of time,
but the timeless reality of pure being is not in movement,
for all movement requires a motionless background. It is itself the background.
Once you have found it in yourself, you know
that you had never lost that independent being.
that you had never lost that independent being.
What changes is not real, what is real does not change.
Now, what is it in you that does not change?
It is a matter of actual experience that the Self has being independent of mind and body.
It is being-awareness-bliss. Awareness of being is bliss.
You must realize yourself as the immovable behind and beyond the movable,
the silent witness of all that happens.
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