What is it that remains after all the comings and goings disappear? I once identified as a Christian, now I am not sure I would (at least as “Christian” is commonly understood). I once taught at a university, now I don’t. I once was single and childless, now I am married with three children. I once suffered from much anxiety, now not so much.
All of these properties that I assigned to myself have now changed. Did anything remain constant through-out all these changes, or am I now fundamentally different?
The “I” remained the same - in each of those sentences the “I” is present, both before and after.
What is the “I”?
Was it there when I was a baby? Is it there now?
Is it something that can be described, does it have some property?
If the “I” has some property or characteristic that can be described, then that property or characteristic could change. Yet even through the enormous changes that have occurred since I was a baby to what I am now, this “I” has remained.
If I ask myself “Am I aware?”, the answer comes immediately - “yes”.
Indeed it seems that, no matter what circumstance I find myself in, if I am in a position to understand the question, I would always answer “yes”.
There has never been a time when I wasn’t aware.
Perhaps that is the “I” that has remained constant since I was a baby, through all those changes. I was aware through-out all these comings and goings, risings and fallings.
Perhaps my deepest self, the “I” that has remained the same, unmoved by all the variety of experiences through life, is simple awareness.
The “I” that I think I am, at this moment (“I am Andrew, I do X for a living, I am married to Y etc.), is not my true “I”. For this I that I think I am, is only there for the duration of the thought. It rises up, and is gone again. Yet some “thing” deeper remains.
What is it that is there before the thought arises (“I am X, Y, Z”), is there during the thought, and is there after the thought?
Awareness.
If I have a thought “I am so worried about work”, and a feeling rises up after this thought, does awareness itself change? Or is it constant - before, after and during this experience?
It is constant. It doesn’t change. It is my true self, my fundamental being.
Do I have to do something to find it? No - you are it. It’s just that this fundamental being is sometimes forgotten or veiled by thought. Yet through all thought, through ten-thousand thoughts, it is still there. For if it wasn’t there would be no thoughts, no “space” for them to arise “in”.
There is no distance to travel. Awareness never leaves.
Ask yourself, “Am I aware?” many times through the day. You will always be able to give an affirmative answer. Yes, yes, yes.
Ask yourself “who am I?” and when that thought falls away, knowingly be, what remains.
You won’t be able to describe your self to your self. Awareness is beyond describing - it can be assigned a label e.g. “Awareness”, or “Presence”, but what it is, in itself, is beyond thoughts and concepts. For it is what remains when all thoughts and concepts fall away.
You can only be your self, not know it. If you can conjure up some image or collection of thoughts about yourself, then that is a counterfeit. It is not what you are, fundamentally. It is the mind’s attempt to grasp, control and describe something that is beyond all of those things.
Become comfortable with the deep Silence that you are.
Beyond all things, quiet, radiant, imperturbable.
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