Who Am I
Born Innocent
Who Am I is a powerful question at the heart of the non-dual or Advaita teachings. Am I this body? Mind? Belief System? Let’s inquire here together and attempt to undo some of our confusion.
As babies we are naturally expansive beings, innocent and open to the great mystery of life with wonder and trust. If you have ever looked into the eyes of a young child, you will get this. Sadly, as we grow we slowly lose this easy connection with the great mystery. Sweet innocence and awe fades away as we develop as a separate identity called Me… Being-ness transforms slowly into me against the world… So what happens?
Busy Becoming Human Doings
We live in a very competitive world, which is set up to reinforce this separate me. A separate special me. We are patterned from birth to become a separate little human doings. As we grow this awakens in us a constant need to validate our special separateness.
Doing and Becoming Verses Being and Presence
Perhaps our greatest disability in life becomes this addiction and attachment to doing in order to become… Constantly seeking approval and more-ness… in a future that only exists in our imagination. This busyness doing to get in order to achieve keeps us far too busy to Stop and relax into being. And it constantly reinforces a feeling of separation…Me and You or Me and the World.
To Do more and to Know more in order to Be Better and Have More. We become so busy doing and becoming, we completely forget our inherent connection to being present….as a human being…
Pain and Struggle awakens the Seeker
As life begins to challenge us, as it will, we experience pain or/and struggle. Feeling separate and alone, we begin to question our values in life, seeking for deeper fulfilment. We may begin to seek and experiment with ways to feel whole again. To find a more a meaningful way to express ourselves in life.
Drugs, Alcohol, Sex, Rock n Roll
We just don’t feel good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, wealthy enough, confident enough…Feelings of low self-esteem may arise together with anxiety and depression. We may drink, party, go from relationship to relationship. We may develop an addiction to numb feelings of inadequacy and emptiness or pain. But it doesn’t work for long. ‘For a moment I was cured’ then the mind returned.
Spiritual Quest
Disillusioned we may turn to some form of spirituality or religion for answers. We begin the spiritual path seeking happiness and relief from the oscillation of our monkey mind.
We may begin to ask the question Who Am I? and..What is the purpose of life? or..What is my soul purpose? And if we really inquire deeply we may find the freedom we are after was right here, in the now moment all along.
The Great Undoing
Hopefully, we may begin to challenge everything we have taken to be true. All the false identifications as the limited little me chained to my history of undermining and limited beliefs, fears, judgements, hopes and regrets. It is the attachment to the stories of the separate-self that can bind us to struggle. We will all find ourselves at this crossroad someday if we are seriously seeking freedom and lasting happiness.
Sitting Quietly Doing Nothing
The zen poem by Basho, “Sitting quietly doing nothing, Spring comes and the grass grows” says it all.
We think we are the doers, shakers and rollers… but really?
Question Everything
Quietly contemplating and deeply questioning the beliefs we have attached so much importance to is a powerful thing to do.
The Tricky Sticky Mind
With between 60,000 and 80,000 thoughts a day and 80% of those being repetitive the mind is indeed a tricky and sticky place. With 90% of our repetitive thoughts coming from belief in the unconscious realm we are very much automated. So, hanging on every thought can drive us Insane. What if we realised that we are not the mind stuff and that paying attention to all the mental chatter is optional?
Applying the principles of mindfulness can be a wonderful support. After the death of my second son I experienced a massive wake-up call and employed mindful principles in allowing consciousness to begin to come Shining Through here.
This body, this mind is not who I am
In realising that I am not this body, not these thoughts nor the story I have identified so strongly with, we begin to sense freedom.
We may begin to see that the identification to the body-mind complex has taken us on a roller coaster ride of highs and lows of unfolding drama. And the freedom we seek does not live here…
So Who Am I
Here is the place where we may ask the very important question; “Who Am I? or Who am I without my history, without the story I tell myself?” Who am I when I don’t believe my thoughts? Who am I without this body?
This question if followed intelligently may just set us FREE.
‘I Am’ … More that this Body-Mind and its Story
Stuck in our separateness we have lost touch with the One Consciousness that is/was ever available, and the love that springs naturally from relaxing into this this.
The expanse that flows through everything, object and subject and offers life unfolding as multiplicity and duality. As the yin-yang of duality.
Perhaps I am Not who I thought myself to be.
Science says we only function on 1/10 the capacity of this brain. So maybe we have fallen into the projected beliefs from a crazy mind that is limited…hypnotised by what it has been brainwashed by well-meaning teachers, leader and a less that healthy society to believe.
Nirvana, Enlightenment, Freedom, Love
The changing point for me was when I realised that enlightenment does not happen to me (the separate self) or you (as a separate entity).
Suddenly ‘I’ was released from the limitation of separation in a paradigm of duality.
This body mind I realised is simply the Mercedes-Benz or Corolla that life, as consciousness, is expressing through. The fuel giving life to this vehicle was consciousness itself…
Self-Identification
I saw that I was the vast sky of being upon which thoughts, beliefs, preferences, and imaginings were arising like clouds. I could simply let them pass through.
By dis-identifying with this mind stuff, this limited-self and all the old programs on a never ending path to somewhere, ‘I’ consciousness was free.
Free to Be In Flow
As the flow of consciousness unfolding in each moment freedom is already here right now. And we are already awake.. Life is unfolding. We are just like the song… Looking for love in all the wrong places.
To live on the leading edge of creation in the NOW moment is Full. And it is enough to be with the ever present flow of life …..unfolding.
Flowing with life is freedom from the insanity of life as a human doing into life as a human being.
By Soraya Saraswati