Who am I?
Try out what follows and see what happens.
Who are you? . . . . . .Who are you, in the fullest, most complete sense, right in this moment? Not who you have been or even who you were earlier this morning and especially, not who you want to be.
In this very moment, right here, ask, “Who am I completely and totally?” . . . . Now notice, what is happening in this moment? Have you not been searching for a conceptualized self? Can you see that concepts won't do it. Can you see that your idea of being a man or woman, husband or wife, or that you are known for this or that achievement or even for this or that failure can never express that ‘Totality’, which is what you are? This constitutes a labelling process that hides the essence of your true nature. As one Zen Master asked, “Who is this person of no title? Show me.”
No amount of thinking will ever reveal what you are, in terms of your true primordial nature. Thoughts come and go, in and out of consciousness; and, as such, are only manifestations of your primordial nature. They can never be the essence of your true nature, for your true nature can never be encapsulated in a thought or even a series of thoughts. At best, all thought can do is to describe what you are. A description can never be the complete being.
Just ask your self, “What is my next thought?” Notice, right now, what happens when you are asking. In that space before thinking, the mind becomes pure potential: openly receptive and empty, yet full of 'what is'. There is 'just this'! Is that not so? In this very moment, just look and see ‘what is’. It is closer than your eyes that are doing the seeing.
It is a 'pure presence' that underlies all of your thoughts, your imaginings, your fictional self-center and your personal worldview. This separate self, the 'me', is just a fictional manifestation and hence completely illusory.
When you truly see that this separate 'me' is illusory, it can no longer dominate your consciousness. When you see that ‘just this, just as it is’ requires that nothing need be added, then you are truly awakened.
Such is the nature of 'Liberation'. When you realize that there is no ‘me’ in the midst of total perception, then this separate self falls away into 'pure presence'. What is 'pure presence'? It is not a concept, for it can never be known or grasped. It is just a way of saying what cannot be spoken.
'JUST THIS' IS ALL THERE IS!*
Excerpted from: Breakthrough: A Paradigm Shift to an Ecological Consciousness (unpublished manuscript)