The process by which we realize our true identity is one that requires the ‘noticing’ of all the ‘things’ that we learn to identify with but are in ‘truth’ not us. This can be a lengthy process of elimination in terms of corporeal time, or it can be an almost instantly induced realization of the ‘I’ that says I am. In both instances meditation and contemplation tend to be the ‘traditional’ methods. However, we live in a world with a thousand voices all trying to convince us to identify with something we are not, and it’s easy to forget our self even once we have tasted that deeper sense of who we are! Hence the need to remember and the effort to remind our self about our self! The value of this process is only fully appreciated when it is clearly seen that any and all our unhappiness, suffering, stress and conflict are always due to one thing, and that is not being aware of our authentic self i.e. not BEING our authentic self.
And so to the second dimension in our trilogy of short but slightly significant questions. Why HERE? Just as why ME cannot be addressed without exploring who is the I that is me, so too Why HERE first requires an enquiry into WHERE Am I? WHERE exactly is HERE? In other words what is the ‘context’ we find ourselves in. Once again our sense of context, or ‘where’ we are, is hugely influenced by our sense of identity and the beliefs and perceptions we have assimilated from others about the world around us. For example if we have learned to identify our self with a ‘national label’ our sense of context will be largely influenced by the concept of a country and the culture that comes with a national identity. We will see our self positioned within and as a part of a ‘national context’. But if we have realized that countries are just groups of people who have learned to collude in identifying with a label given to a piece of land, then we transcend the narrow sense of a context defined by nationality. We will more likely see our self not as a member or citizen of a country, but more as a human being within all humanity. Quite a jump in our ‘contextual awareness’ after a lifetime of ‘nationalistic conditioning’.
Not long ago, perhaps only 100 years ago, most people’s sense of context was quite narrow. They were born, grew up, worked and died in a small community with little or no awareness of anything beyond that context. Today, huge numbers of us will not only travel the world but even work around the world. And even if we don’t visit the world in person we can watch the world from our armchair. From this purely physical point of view our sense of context has expanded exponentially in a relatively short space of time. When Mother Theresa started her work her sense of context was quite ‘small’ and narrow as she sought only to help those in need in a very small local community. But by the time she passed on she had a ‘sense of context’ that was global. Her work spread around the world through her organization as she served the world.
And so from a three dimensional ‘world out there’ point of view we can each choose and create our own sense of context if we wish. We can confine our awareness and our focus in life to a small localised context, or we could choose to do something in the world, perhaps for the world, throughout the world. Just as our truest sense of who we are can contract around a false sense of identity or expand into the unbounded and undivided being of ‘pure awareness’ that we are, so too our sense of context is an awareness that can contract or expand.
A slightly less visible and less tangible dimension of context is relationship. Life is relationship and relationship is not a static condition. It is ‘dynamic’ and ever changing. And if we don’t understand these dynamics, if we don’t learn to align with the laws and principles behind these dynamics, if we don’t develop an ability to ‘play’ within the dynamics of relationship there will always be a ‘jarring’ effect within our exchanges with others. Over time we will start to feel like the stranger at the party wondering both where we are and why we are here!
The basic dynamic of relationship that defines the ‘context of relationship’ is an exchange of energy. It could be said that there is harmony in relationship when there is a natural giving and receiving of positive energy. This is the law of harmony. And if there is a feeling of disharmony, if there is any negative thinking or emotional turmoil during an exchange, it usually means giving and receiving has turned into wanting, taking or keeping. When HERE is seen to be our relationship with everyone and everything around us, and when we are able read the internal signals that indicate disharmony, we can begin to re-align with the dynamics of relationship that generate and sustain harmony. As we attempt to do so we may discover it’s not that easy being ‘harmonious’ with ALL others in the HERE. Others can be easily perceived to be anything from kind and generous to sly and manipulative, from caring and benevolent to nasty and brutish. Consistent good character, necessary to the creation of harmony in relationship, can be a rare find in a world where few really know who they are, and where most spend their life defending and sustaining an identity which is not true, not real. While at the same time some of our own habitual inclinations, include attempting to control others, judging and criticizing others or simply complaining about others, are not exactly born of the intention to create harmony. A harmonious exchange can be challenging to create and it often seems easily lost. Realising we have moved away from giving and receiving and into wanting, taking or keeping is always the first step back to the co-creation of harmony in a ‘relational context’.
When we see HERE (the context of our life) as relationship the essential realization that follows is that this is a creative context. We are HERE to be creative. Unfortunately for many, if not most of us, we either don’t or cannot see our life happening as a creative process but more as a consumptive process. We learn more to consume than to create. Why? Simply because we don’t know our self accurately. When we see ourselves as solely physical forms then consumption tends to become the primary intention and behaviour. Our sense of HERE is as a place and opportunity to get, to acquire and to consume. Opportunity quickly becomes necessity. Whereas when we know our self as the conscious being that ‘occupies’ form we begin to restore our awareness of our true creative potential. We begin to fully understand and how we create not only our life HERE but also co-create with others the state of the world out THERE!
It’s in this attempt to ‘create harmony’ in your relationships, and perhaps the repeated failure to do so, that you may notice that the ‘real HERE’ is not ‘out there’! The deepest HERE is prior to your relationships ‘out there’! The deepest awareness of the context of our life is closer to home than we think. We tend to see HERE as somewhere ‘out there’ in the world around us. But in truth HERE is within you, within you the being of consciousness. And it is HERE, within your self, that you do what you are designed to do, which is not to watch others in the world, not to judge others in the world, not to argue with others in the world or attempt to fix the others in the world, it is to ‘create’ the world, including others.
The world in this sense does not mean physical objects or other people’s forms, or indeed the consciousness of others. Objects and forms are already created, as is the consciousness of others. However, the ‘real world’ is HERE within your consciousness, where you, the artist of life, abide. The canvas is the screen of your mind and you paint (create) the world with your perceptions, thoughts, feelings and intuitions. But you are unlikely to find this easy to ‘see’ until you see and realise that everything, which means every ‘thing’, exists in two places at once. Out there and in HERE…so to speak. What appears to be ‘there’ is really HERE! And HERE is where ‘I am’. And it is the ‘I’ that says ‘I am’ that creates what appears ‘out there’ in HERE.
The simplest proof of this, if it can be called ‘proof’ is as follows. We all know that we each interpret the same external scene, event or circumstance differently. We will each create a different perception within our consciousness of what ‘seems’ to be happening ‘out there.’ Regular contemplation, reflection and meditation increases the capacity to see that to perceive is to create and that you perceive/create the world/people out there according to your state of consciousness in HERE, within the ‘I’ that says ‘I am’. To a realised ‘I’, to the one who is aware that they are simply pure awareness, it is clearly seen that the ‘real world’ is not out there, it’s HERE … right HERE! The world out there becomes a secondary reality, a projection and co-projection of ‘projectors’, known as human beings. For example, those human beings who call themselves news reporters or journalists create their perception of what is happening out THERE in their HERE, in their primary reality (consciousness), and then project it out into the secondary reality of the world in the form of paper and ink. The rest of us then project our perception of their projection, created within the primary reality of our consciousness, out into the world of our relationships. This of course is an action that triggers/stimulates/creates more actions, which makes more news! And so the world out there, which isn’t ‘out there’, is really just a projection of the world in HERE.
The awakening of our awareness to the realization that our ‘primary reality’, and therefore our deepest awareness of context, is within our own consciousness, has massive implications for the way we live (create) our lives.
It becomes obvious that you are obviously totally responsible for your own sense of reality, which you create within your own consciousness. Everything that emerges from that ‘reality’ including your thoughts, feelings, attitudes and actions, regardless of what seems to be happening ‘out there’, is one hundred percent the responsibility of the self . Occasionally we encounter someone who seems to intuitively know and live this way. Nothing ‘out there’ disturbs them because they know it’s not what happens out there but how they create HERE what happens out THERE that allows them to stay calm, focused and proactively responsive.
The tension of searching comes to an end as ‘the truth’ is found, seen and known within consciousness. Truth is ‘reality’, truth is what is real, and the highest reality is the universe of ‘the self’, and the self does not need to be searched for, as it is never lost. Neither is anything missing from the self other than the self being aware that reality is ‘self’, is consciousness, and that consciousness is the creator, all else is creation, all else is ‘play’ in a lower reality, including going to work!
Which all adds up to one single conclusion – ultimately, to a being that knows they are a being of consciousness and not the form they occupy, there is no THERE only HERE. Wherever you go, which means wherever you take your form, HERE is always where you are! If you believe YOU are going somewhere it’s an illusion. When the illusion is ‘seen through’, it’s a fun illusion, you can play with it and within it, as it ceases to have power over you the ‘I’ that says ‘I am’. But until it is ‘seen through’ it is an illusion that clouds your awareness of reality and generates disharmony and suffering in HERE! And so when someone asks you WHERE are you going, you can now reply with conviction, “Nowhere really, for in reality I am always HERE…in reality”. They are unlikely to understand a word you are saying but it can be a great conversation opener into the most important questions WHY ME, WHY HERE!
Question: Why is the ‘real’ world (reality) not ‘there’ but always HERE?
Reflection: Where is HERE exactly and how do you know?
Action: Take five minutes at the end of each day this week, look back on the day and find two perceptions that you could have created differently.
Why ME Why HERE Why NOW ?
It’s that moment just after disaster has struck, when you are reflecting on what just happened that you are likely to hear a voice in your head that says, “Why me, why now?” And it can be even more frustrating to discover there is usually no reply!
For those who see themselves as someone encountering frequent misfortune this question is a regular visitor to their consciousness. For others it seems that the backdrop to their entire life has always contained the nagging mystery of …me, here, now … why? As these somewhat esoteric questions gnaw away at our consciousness we might suppress them, ignore them or try to shut them down with the distraction of action. However there are some amongst us who earnestly pursue the answers, as if called by a deeper part of our ‘self’ that keeps reminding us that these are the most important questions, and that life will be incomplete without knowing. And there are those at the other end of the spectrum who would never give a second thought to questions that they regard as somewhat irrelevant. They simply get on with living their life. But it’s almost certain that at some moment, and it may only be ‘one’ moment, when even they will at least hesitate in their tracks with a self reflective enquiry into, “Why am I me?”.
Why me, here, now, are questions that point straight at the heart of almost all philosophical musings, the core of almost all spiritual understanding, the underlying wisdom of almost all of those considered to be wise, and to what is sometimes referred to as enlightenment. They are the classic starting points of the earnest seeker who is hunting truth. And they are both signposts and stepping stones as you embark on what is known as the ‘spiritual journey’, which is essentially a process of clarifying three things – identity, meaning and purpose.
Playing with, digging under, looking behind and silently contemplating each question is essential if you are to follow the signs and set out on the seeker’s trail. For example, WHY ME cannot be fully answered until you are clear about WHO IS ME. Why did most of the major philosophers through the ages finally decide there was really only one question worth exploring? Why did they say that when you get the answer to this question you will realise and know all you will ever need to know? That question of course is WHO AM I? Paradoxically it is the one question that can never be fully answered as it points to a place beyond language, beyond all philosophy, beyond all symbology. However, it is in the attempt to answer it that everything else becomes clear. In the context of the first question - WHY ME or WHO IS ME - there are three ways to proceed ‘towards clarity’ – elimination, realisation and re-memorisation. Ultimately the first leads to the second, which initiates the third.
Applying the process of elimination is similar to stripping off your many layers of clothing to reveal your naked physical form. By ‘seeing’ what you are not, what the ‘I’ is not, you gradually ‘uncloak’ the true self who is always present and naked at the centre. Instead of starting with WHO AM I, experiment with WHO or WHAT AM I NOT? Then identify all the things you identify with, and in the revealing light of your awareness, challenge each with the question IS THAT WHAT I AM? It will not be long before you start to see that you are not things like your nationality, your profession, your location, even your family! They are all either labels or ‘things’ quite separate from the ‘I’.
As you proceed you may catch a glimpse of the truth that you are not your race, gender and even your body as they are also not what the ‘I’ that says ‘I am’...is! Once again they are labels or in the case of the body just the piece of meat and bone that is closest to the ‘I’! If you stick with it, at an even subtler level, you will begin to eliminate all the things you momentarily believe are you, but are not! Things like your thoughts, feelings and even your beliefs and memories can also be a source of a false sense of identity. It becomes obvious that all of these ‘things’, like all other ‘things’, come and go, and yet the ‘I’, the ME, always remains.
So what is left after the process of elimination, after peeling away all the layers of false identity. Nothing is left. No thing. Only awareness. This can sound a bit scary in theory. It can sound like a complete loss of identity. In reality however, it is the restoration of ‘real identity’ because it was already lost in all those other ‘things’. This regaining of identity, of who I am, however, is not an idea or a theory, that would be to identify again with just another idea or theory. At the end of the process of elimination you are left with an awareness of your self as awareness, as the one who is aware of being aware, knowing your self as the one who knows they don’t know! While this sounds abstract (as it must in physical language) in practice and in reality (of consciousness), it is both freeing and energising. What falls away is all the fighting and defending of what were false identities, all the struggling and striving to survive the perceived threats to those identities and all the suffering and the stress that have their roots in misidentification.
Freeing the ME from all that has trapped it, releases a long suppressed enthusiasm for life and the joy of living. However until there is this ‘revealing of the self to the self’ many will resist and fight against this idea of being ‘no thing’ and say things like, “But I like to struggle... I need to fight...life and suffering go together…don’t they?” They are really saying they are a little addicted to the ‘pain of living’, a pain they probably have not yet realised they create themselves. For them WHY ME or who AM I really, is irrelevant…at the moment!
The second route to the awareness of the ‘I’ that says I AM is realisation. Just as science creates a theory and then conducts experiments to affirm the truth or the reality of the theory, so the self contemplates a theory of WHO I AM. The laboratory is consciousness, the method is meditation, the raw materials are thoughts, the measures of progress are feelings and insight, and the result of the internal experiment is ‘self realisation’.
.
First the theory, which is not new, and which goes something like this. The ‘I” is a conscious being, or a being of consciousness. Consciousness is energy but not an energy that you can see with physical eyes. This energy is indestructible and is often referred to as spirit, soul or the authentic self. It is not separate from the self. It is the ME that says I AM ME! It is the life force that animates the form. It is ‘I’. And the original and unchanging nature of the ‘I’ is peaceful and loving. That’s the theory. The experiment is conducted in the laboratory of consciousness and its aim, like all scientific experiments, is to validate or invalidate the theory. The methodology is meditation. As the self meditates upon the ideas/beliefs/concepts contained within the theory it focuses its entire attention inwards upon such thoughts. Gradually those thoughts penetrate the heart of consciousness while at the same time fading into silence. It’s as if they knock on the door of the heart, and as the heart of the self opens there is insight (sight in) into the heart, and the ‘realisation’ of ‘I am’ and that nothing need be added to ‘I am’. There is not even the thought ‘I am’, simply pure awareness. In that moment the self insperiences the highest reality, and it is silent and still, yet radiantly peaceful, and it is the power of ‘I’. The self realises the self as pure awareness. From that moment all other identities have no power over the self, and they dissolve into the background (well almost) as they are clearly seen to be the illusions that they are.
The maintenance of self realisation, or the ‘realised self’, then becomes the ‘inner work’ of day-to-day life. The insight (sight in) into who I am is sustained by re-memorisation. The lifetime habit of identifying with what you are not is so strong that there are inevitable moments through the day when you fall asleep to your ‘realisation of self’, and back into misidentification. So there is an ‘effort’ to remember, remind and restore your consciousness of your self as the ‘I’ that says I AM, as pure awareness and nothing more. This memorisation and re-memorisation over time weakens the habit of allowing those old false identities to re-invade your consciousness and thereby hijack your thoughts and feelings. And as the self stabilises its self, your true sense of your own pure being becomes clear and consistent.
A sure sign that self realisation is genuine is a change of perception. There is a perceptual shift from seeing others as the enemy, as dangerous or threatening, and seeing the world as a place of struggle and survival, to where one is able to accept and embrace all, metaphorically speaking, and to embrace and dance with all of life… metaphorically speaking!
The proof that the self has realised the self will be the disappearance of all questions that begin with WHY including WHY ME. It drops away. When the ‘I’ knows the ‘I’ that says ‘I am’ no reason is needed to…be. Being is enough. There IS no reason to be, no reason for being, other than to be. WHY ME only arises while there is ignorance of who am I. When WHY ME arises it is simply a sign that says you are not fully aware of your self, and not yet aware that to be, to live, to be alive, to be life, and to live life is enough. Reasons are unnecessary. This verges on what could be termed the return to innocence. This is the bliss of ignorance. Whereas WHY ME is the pain of IGNORANCE, which really means the ‘I’ that I AM is being ignored. And that is the deepest cause of all suffering.
Question: Why do you think so few consciously explore themselves to see and understand who they really are?
Reflection: Sit quietly. Watch attentively. See clearly. Acknowledge silently. Gently allow all that arises in you to pass. And then be aware of what is left. Be aware of what does not pass.
Action: At the end of each day this week look back at the day and see if you can see what you mistakenly identified with throughout that day.
For those who see themselves as someone encountering frequent misfortune this question is a regular visitor to their consciousness. For others it seems that the backdrop to their entire life has always contained the nagging mystery of …me, here, now … why? As these somewhat esoteric questions gnaw away at our consciousness we might suppress them, ignore them or try to shut them down with the distraction of action. However there are some amongst us who earnestly pursue the answers, as if called by a deeper part of our ‘self’ that keeps reminding us that these are the most important questions, and that life will be incomplete without knowing. And there are those at the other end of the spectrum who would never give a second thought to questions that they regard as somewhat irrelevant. They simply get on with living their life. But it’s almost certain that at some moment, and it may only be ‘one’ moment, when even they will at least hesitate in their tracks with a self reflective enquiry into, “Why am I me?”.
Why me, here, now, are questions that point straight at the heart of almost all philosophical musings, the core of almost all spiritual understanding, the underlying wisdom of almost all of those considered to be wise, and to what is sometimes referred to as enlightenment. They are the classic starting points of the earnest seeker who is hunting truth. And they are both signposts and stepping stones as you embark on what is known as the ‘spiritual journey’, which is essentially a process of clarifying three things – identity, meaning and purpose.
Playing with, digging under, looking behind and silently contemplating each question is essential if you are to follow the signs and set out on the seeker’s trail. For example, WHY ME cannot be fully answered until you are clear about WHO IS ME. Why did most of the major philosophers through the ages finally decide there was really only one question worth exploring? Why did they say that when you get the answer to this question you will realise and know all you will ever need to know? That question of course is WHO AM I? Paradoxically it is the one question that can never be fully answered as it points to a place beyond language, beyond all philosophy, beyond all symbology. However, it is in the attempt to answer it that everything else becomes clear. In the context of the first question - WHY ME or WHO IS ME - there are three ways to proceed ‘towards clarity’ – elimination, realisation and re-memorisation. Ultimately the first leads to the second, which initiates the third.
Applying the process of elimination is similar to stripping off your many layers of clothing to reveal your naked physical form. By ‘seeing’ what you are not, what the ‘I’ is not, you gradually ‘uncloak’ the true self who is always present and naked at the centre. Instead of starting with WHO AM I, experiment with WHO or WHAT AM I NOT? Then identify all the things you identify with, and in the revealing light of your awareness, challenge each with the question IS THAT WHAT I AM? It will not be long before you start to see that you are not things like your nationality, your profession, your location, even your family! They are all either labels or ‘things’ quite separate from the ‘I’.
As you proceed you may catch a glimpse of the truth that you are not your race, gender and even your body as they are also not what the ‘I’ that says ‘I am’...is! Once again they are labels or in the case of the body just the piece of meat and bone that is closest to the ‘I’! If you stick with it, at an even subtler level, you will begin to eliminate all the things you momentarily believe are you, but are not! Things like your thoughts, feelings and even your beliefs and memories can also be a source of a false sense of identity. It becomes obvious that all of these ‘things’, like all other ‘things’, come and go, and yet the ‘I’, the ME, always remains.
So what is left after the process of elimination, after peeling away all the layers of false identity. Nothing is left. No thing. Only awareness. This can sound a bit scary in theory. It can sound like a complete loss of identity. In reality however, it is the restoration of ‘real identity’ because it was already lost in all those other ‘things’. This regaining of identity, of who I am, however, is not an idea or a theory, that would be to identify again with just another idea or theory. At the end of the process of elimination you are left with an awareness of your self as awareness, as the one who is aware of being aware, knowing your self as the one who knows they don’t know! While this sounds abstract (as it must in physical language) in practice and in reality (of consciousness), it is both freeing and energising. What falls away is all the fighting and defending of what were false identities, all the struggling and striving to survive the perceived threats to those identities and all the suffering and the stress that have their roots in misidentification.
Freeing the ME from all that has trapped it, releases a long suppressed enthusiasm for life and the joy of living. However until there is this ‘revealing of the self to the self’ many will resist and fight against this idea of being ‘no thing’ and say things like, “But I like to struggle... I need to fight...life and suffering go together…don’t they?” They are really saying they are a little addicted to the ‘pain of living’, a pain they probably have not yet realised they create themselves. For them WHY ME or who AM I really, is irrelevant…at the moment!
The second route to the awareness of the ‘I’ that says I AM is realisation. Just as science creates a theory and then conducts experiments to affirm the truth or the reality of the theory, so the self contemplates a theory of WHO I AM. The laboratory is consciousness, the method is meditation, the raw materials are thoughts, the measures of progress are feelings and insight, and the result of the internal experiment is ‘self realisation’.
.
First the theory, which is not new, and which goes something like this. The ‘I” is a conscious being, or a being of consciousness. Consciousness is energy but not an energy that you can see with physical eyes. This energy is indestructible and is often referred to as spirit, soul or the authentic self. It is not separate from the self. It is the ME that says I AM ME! It is the life force that animates the form. It is ‘I’. And the original and unchanging nature of the ‘I’ is peaceful and loving. That’s the theory. The experiment is conducted in the laboratory of consciousness and its aim, like all scientific experiments, is to validate or invalidate the theory. The methodology is meditation. As the self meditates upon the ideas/beliefs/concepts contained within the theory it focuses its entire attention inwards upon such thoughts. Gradually those thoughts penetrate the heart of consciousness while at the same time fading into silence. It’s as if they knock on the door of the heart, and as the heart of the self opens there is insight (sight in) into the heart, and the ‘realisation’ of ‘I am’ and that nothing need be added to ‘I am’. There is not even the thought ‘I am’, simply pure awareness. In that moment the self insperiences the highest reality, and it is silent and still, yet radiantly peaceful, and it is the power of ‘I’. The self realises the self as pure awareness. From that moment all other identities have no power over the self, and they dissolve into the background (well almost) as they are clearly seen to be the illusions that they are.
The maintenance of self realisation, or the ‘realised self’, then becomes the ‘inner work’ of day-to-day life. The insight (sight in) into who I am is sustained by re-memorisation. The lifetime habit of identifying with what you are not is so strong that there are inevitable moments through the day when you fall asleep to your ‘realisation of self’, and back into misidentification. So there is an ‘effort’ to remember, remind and restore your consciousness of your self as the ‘I’ that says I AM, as pure awareness and nothing more. This memorisation and re-memorisation over time weakens the habit of allowing those old false identities to re-invade your consciousness and thereby hijack your thoughts and feelings. And as the self stabilises its self, your true sense of your own pure being becomes clear and consistent.
A sure sign that self realisation is genuine is a change of perception. There is a perceptual shift from seeing others as the enemy, as dangerous or threatening, and seeing the world as a place of struggle and survival, to where one is able to accept and embrace all, metaphorically speaking, and to embrace and dance with all of life… metaphorically speaking!
The proof that the self has realised the self will be the disappearance of all questions that begin with WHY including WHY ME. It drops away. When the ‘I’ knows the ‘I’ that says ‘I am’ no reason is needed to…be. Being is enough. There IS no reason to be, no reason for being, other than to be. WHY ME only arises while there is ignorance of who am I. When WHY ME arises it is simply a sign that says you are not fully aware of your self, and not yet aware that to be, to live, to be alive, to be life, and to live life is enough. Reasons are unnecessary. This verges on what could be termed the return to innocence. This is the bliss of ignorance. Whereas WHY ME is the pain of IGNORANCE, which really means the ‘I’ that I AM is being ignored. And that is the deepest cause of all suffering.
Question: Why do you think so few consciously explore themselves to see and understand who they really are?
Reflection: Sit quietly. Watch attentively. See clearly. Acknowledge silently. Gently allow all that arises in you to pass. And then be aware of what is left. Be aware of what does not pass.
Action: At the end of each day this week look back at the day and see if you can see what you mistakenly identified with throughout that day.
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