Who is asking, "Who am I"?

We seem to be sitting still

but we are actually moving,

and the fantasies of phenomenon

are actually sliding through us,

like ideas through curtains.

-Rumi from The Well

 

I have been thinking a lot about who we really are and what stops us from knowing that. I was thinking about the importance of not closing the curtain over that Self with our thinking. I happened across a video today of a Healing summit hosted by three of my favorite teachers in the whole world: Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle.  (Why are they my favorite teachers?  Because I 'feel" what they have or had to say. Oh but atlas there is no room for preferences in life, is there?) 

 

The question that was the subject matter for the lecture was, "Who is asking, who am I?" The theme  was about becoming aware of awareness so that we can have complete alignment with the present moment and therefore experience Life fully. It was about transcending thought which provides a veil or a curtain over that background of the spaciousness, the presence, and the truth that is us.

 

 

The real you is the timeless observer in the midst of time bound observation. -Deepak Chopra.

 

 

Expectations

 

Chopra and Tolle both explain that the so called 'problems' we may have with Life are usually the result of our expectations that the things out there: circumstances, objects, people should make us happy.  Maybe we need to strive, work hard, fix, control, manipulate and wait in order to get things the way they should be in order for that to happen but eventually our inner fulfillment is a consequence of what is happening out there. At least that is what we are conditioned to believe.

 

Finding love, joy, completeness, however, is an inner game not an outer one.  What we fail to realize is that we are already joyful, complete and Love.  The only thing that stops us from knowing that is our thinking.  We need to find a way to transcend thought, which doesn't mean we leave all thought behind.  It only means we learn to use thought instead of having thought use us.

 

Verbs not nouns.

 

One way of transcending is realizing that "the things" out there are actually verbs not nouns. You are a verb, circumstances are verbs, the universe is a verb.

 

Say what?

 

Everything we identify with in this physical world, is a process, impermanent and in constant flux.  The body is constantly changing, circumstances are constantly unfolding and disappearing, the mind and the idea of 'me' is never the same from one moment to the next and the universe is a process of evolution not a static thing. The things around us will not make us "happy".  The universe we experience and everything in it, is just a process of fluctuating sensing, picturing, feeling and thinking.

 

The only way to find true joy is to realize who we are amongst the flux.

 

What is eternal and unchanging is that  permanent, unchanging "being" that is aware of all of this, that is aware of awareness. We often call it "the observer" but it is neither the observer or the observed, the object or the subject.  It was never born, nor will it die.  It was the starting point for joy and it will be the ending point. Therefore, it cannot be found out there.  Finding it, doesn't mean going on a physical or mental search for it out there or in the future.  The journey to knowing this is actually a "journey without distance."

 

All we need to do is find the space in between thoughts and we have opened up to it.  It exists right here, right now where it always was.  The only reason we don't know that, is because we allow the thinking mind to distract us, and pull us away into the impermanent flux of physical world crap.  We don't necessarily have to stop thinking, we just need to be aware we are thinking so we do not get lost in it. We don't have to go anywhere, do anything to find who we are...we just need to know we are already here.  We don't need to fight or struggle against the distracting physical world either.  At some point we will simply realize we do not need to be distracted. All there is is now and we are that now.

 

Who am I that is asking who am I?

 

 

Ask who am I that is asking, who am I in silence and stillness and we will connect to that living realization.  We will transcend the curtain and the thought traffic for the spacious, unchanging stillness that is us. That is where we will experience the joy, love and completeness  we have erroneously looked outward for until now. 

 

 

 

Who am I,

standing in the midst

of this thought-traffic?

-Rumi, The Well

 

 

All is well. 

 

References

 

 

Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle. Who is I? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiBy1yEhxwQ

 

 

Rumi (n.d.) The Well. Retrieved fromhttp://rumidays.blogspot.com/2010/04/well.html