What is this?
Who am I?
The Many Faces of the One: article 3 - the unpublished esoteric writings of an aging yogi.
FEARLESS REALITY
"What is unreal is mistaken to be real, and this keeps what is truly Real hidden from us. It is through the spiritual actualization and transcendental knowledge and knowing of that which is Real that we are free, whole, fulfilled, fearless and at peace with all that is unreal, selfless, empty, impersonal and transitory. It is in this transcendental Truth, knowing and knowledge of pure 'Spirit', the Deathless Self, that we can love, release, accept and be at peace with all that life is and all that it will ever be; whether it be favorable or unfavorable, desirable or undesirable, easy or challenging. For all of conditioned and conceptual life is transitory, impersonal and empty of any real permanence. Only the 'I-am' is real. Of this I am certain. Of this I am very clear. 'I-am' alone is. Only God is Real as the eternal 'I-am'. In this esoteric knowing of knowing without knowing there is nothing left to fear in life or death. One who is fully awake has realized one's true identity with and as the Absolute."
I am the 'I-am' of I am.
'I-am. Life is.' 'I-am' is one with all life and all life is one with 'I-am'. Only 'I-am' is.
continuing from the collected esoteric writings and works of article 2:
What is put to us all here in these esoteric contemplative and meditative writings and works on Atman-Yoga is that we generally, as a temporary physical embodied form and creation of reality, mistake the unreal for being the real. We mistake the insubstantial for being the substantial, the impersonal for being personal and the transitory for being permanent. We assume and believe that lasting permanence and reliance can be found in that which is actually impermanent. And this includes how we think and feel. We somehow forget, or should I say that the individualized 'mind' forgets, that what we experience is only a temporary mental projection and physical construct of pure 'Spirit'; a selfless, temporary, impersonal and empty expression of our true undying essence and nature and therefore only relative to our experience and our interpretation of it. It is simply the ever-changing playing out of the unmade, unborn and impersonal Deathless Self, pure 'Spirit' and nothing more. What we experience and know as being sensory phenomena, be it desirable or undesirable, is all one deathless and eternal Reality and identity, pure Spirit, experienced, known and played out in a myriad of transitory, empty, impersonal and ever-changing forms, worldly events, dramas, situations, creations and conditions. Nothing more than this. The reality, identity and essence of all phenomena and creations is the Absolute. For me, this is the highest realization, self-knowing and knowledge of reality, experience and identity. It is the eternal and ever-present light of Self.
Our true selfless, undying and formless identity, pure 'Spirit' or should I say 'essence' is changeless, eternal, at peace, loved, complete, fulfilled, plentiful and free of all the conceptual and phenomenal world of things, forms, dramas, creations and phenomena, and yet it too is one with all things. It is an infinite, undying and abiding transcendental 'intelligence' beyond the definition and use of the conceptual word 'intelligence'. It is beyond the idea, use, language and label of the word 'intelligence' as we use and know it in a conceptual and cognitive way. From this ultimate, selfless, causeless and undying 'intelligence' comes the ever-changing mind/body experience and the mind-consciousness of knowing and having experience; the conscious awareness and knowing of knowing. From this selfless, undying and formless 'intelligence' comes the whole diversity, multiplicity and complexity of phenomenal experience and the having and knowing of that experience including the phenomenal, conditioned, ever-changing and conceptual world of things, events, forms, constructs, phenomena and dramas. And yet this formless and transcendental 'intelligence' remains forever as it is, limitless, unchanging, unmoved, untouched, eternal, at peace, unborn, whole, complete, plentiful and free of all things, dramas, forms, creations and events.
Our true selfless, undying and formless identity, pure 'Spirit' or should I say 'essence' is changeless, eternal, at peace, loved, complete, fulfilled, plentiful and free of all the conceptual and phenomenal world of things, forms, dramas, creations and phenomena, and yet it too is one with all things. It is an infinite, undying and abiding transcendental 'intelligence' beyond the definition and use of the conceptual word 'intelligence'. It is beyond the idea, use, language and label of the word 'intelligence' as we use and know it in a conceptual and cognitive way. From this ultimate, selfless, causeless and undying 'intelligence' comes the ever-changing mind/body experience and the mind-consciousness of knowing and having experience; the conscious awareness and knowing of knowing. From this selfless, undying and formless 'intelligence' comes the whole diversity, multiplicity and complexity of phenomenal experience and the having and knowing of that experience including the phenomenal, conditioned, ever-changing and conceptual world of things, events, forms, constructs, phenomena and dramas. And yet this formless and transcendental 'intelligence' remains forever as it is, limitless, unchanging, unmoved, untouched, eternal, at peace, unborn, whole, complete, plentiful and free of all things, dramas, forms, creations and events.
I would go as far to say that this universal 'intelligence' is primarily what we and all things are; it is our true original essence, state, origin, identity and nature, this ever-present 'I-am' being unborn, deathless and causeless. And yet we mostly remain, or should I say the individualized 'mind' remains, in material ignorance and bondage due to the worldly false individualized identity of our mind-made persona and the attachment to the mind/body experience in relationship to the objective phenomena and experience we call 'world', and so too with the things, dramas, forms and events of the this ever-changing sensory phenomenal world. For me, the highest knowing of reality and experience is fully realizing our true identity with the Absolute. What I state here as 'I-AM' - the invincible and inexhaustible enduring light of the Self.
The 'I-am' of I am.
KNOWING OUR TRUE HOME
Obviously I fully appreciate and acknowledge that for some of us given our personal and present individualized worldly identity, circumstances, challenges and conditions this can be a challenging spiritual endeavor and conclusion for us to realize, know and accept; as our worldly mind-made identity and persona is mostly constructed out of the limited identification and on-going relationship with the mind/body experience and the ever-changing phenomenal world of things, dramas, constructs, creations and forms. We in our everyday humanity ordinarily and daily think ourselves into existence as a separate individualized embodied individual and persona in relationship to everything else that appears to us, and we easily stand by who we perceive, reinforce, believe and confirm ourselves to be, as a limited and isolated embodied individual and self in relationship to everything else. From this worldly individualized mind-made identity and persona, we hold strongly to our feeling and sense of individuality, neediness, self-importance and separateness, and our own self-image, which is strongly identified and associated with the mind/body experience and the conceptual and phenomenal world of things, events, constructs, conditions, creations and dramas. We primarily and mostly all have our individualized story, history, desires and identity.
As already stated, this is where the process and act of 'personalization' happens and is attached to. This too is true for our own experience of the phenomenal world and the myriad of things, dramas and events that it includes. Individuality and separateness is our held to reality and identity. From the moment we wake from sleep state with the feeling and thought of 'I' or 'me' and to the moment we return to sleep state, we have some held to conceptual and cognitive idea, belief or notion of 'self' or 'I' in relationship to the mind/body experience and the ever-changing phenomenal world of things, creations and forms. We have our personal and individualized story, history, desires, needs and identity. From the moment we are in the waking state with the feeling and thought of 'I' and have the mental impression and physical feeling of being self-conscious, self-aware and awake we mostly have a strong and reinforced feeling and sense of individualized individuality, I-am-the-body and separateness in relationship to the world of phenomena, forms, constructs, creations and things. There is 'me' and there is everything else. I am 'me' and 'you' are 'you'. This is 'yours' and this is 'mine'. I am here and everything else is there. We mostly have an internal mental dialogue and story of who we think we are, what our life is and what the world is. I think most of us at this stage of experience or consciousness would easily agree on this statement.
What I have spoken of mostly comes from what we appear to experience as sense objects and the sensory world of sense objects - seeing, hearing touch, smell, taste, thinking and awareness - mind-consciousness. With the added addition of conscious knowing - the impersonal and objectless knowing of being aware. For the most part of our individualized embodied mind/body experience, the phenomenal world is experienced as something personal and separate to us, and happening to other phenomena, people and forms outside, separate and external to ourselves. It is all seen or felt as something that is happening to us and others, and that we are in some small or large way participating in it. We are, to various degrees, acting and contributing to it; impacting and affecting it, or affected or unaffected by it. Separateness and individuality is our held to reality, experience and identity. We mostly have our own individualized story, history, desires and identity that we are acting and playing out from day to day and moment to moment. This is 'me' and that is everything else. This is my story, my history, my past, present and future. These are my desires and needs.
Again I think at this level of mind-consciousness and knowing most of us would easily agree with this. So even though this feeling and thought of our individual identification and separateness in relationship to sensory objects and the sensory world of things, creations and forms has come into being out of there being no idea, belief or notion of self, we somehow immediately become easily identified with it as being who and what we are in relationship to everything else as being separate, substantial and real. I experience a body, therefore I am the body or at least the 'I' that is aware of having a so-called form called 'body'. I experience a mind therefore I am the mind or I am what the mind thinks and knows to be me or I am that, that has the awareness and knowing of mind and body. We experience a sense of 'I' in relationship to the mind/body experience and now this 'I' is me. All that 'I' experience becomes personal to me, and therefore I become emotionally invested in it. It is all happening to 'me' and 'I' am the one who is having and knowing experience. There is this objective and ever-changing phenomenal world of things and forms and I am the 'I' that is experiencing it. This is 'me' or 'I' who is having and knowing experience whether I am affected or unaffected by it. There is an ever-changing mental drama and story of the individualized embodied self that is being acted and played out as 'me' in the mind and with the body.
As already stated, this is where the process and act of 'personalization' happens and is attached to. This too is true for our own experience of the phenomenal world and the myriad of things, dramas and events that it includes. Individuality and separateness is our held to reality and identity. From the moment we wake from sleep state with the feeling and thought of 'I' or 'me' and to the moment we return to sleep state, we have some held to conceptual and cognitive idea, belief or notion of 'self' or 'I' in relationship to the mind/body experience and the ever-changing phenomenal world of things, creations and forms. We have our personal and individualized story, history, desires, needs and identity. From the moment we are in the waking state with the feeling and thought of 'I' and have the mental impression and physical feeling of being self-conscious, self-aware and awake we mostly have a strong and reinforced feeling and sense of individualized individuality, I-am-the-body and separateness in relationship to the world of phenomena, forms, constructs, creations and things. There is 'me' and there is everything else. I am 'me' and 'you' are 'you'. This is 'yours' and this is 'mine'. I am here and everything else is there. We mostly have an internal mental dialogue and story of who we think we are, what our life is and what the world is. I think most of us at this stage of experience or consciousness would easily agree on this statement.
What I have spoken of mostly comes from what we appear to experience as sense objects and the sensory world of sense objects - seeing, hearing touch, smell, taste, thinking and awareness - mind-consciousness. With the added addition of conscious knowing - the impersonal and objectless knowing of being aware. For the most part of our individualized embodied mind/body experience, the phenomenal world is experienced as something personal and separate to us, and happening to other phenomena, people and forms outside, separate and external to ourselves. It is all seen or felt as something that is happening to us and others, and that we are in some small or large way participating in it. We are, to various degrees, acting and contributing to it; impacting and affecting it, or affected or unaffected by it. Separateness and individuality is our held to reality, experience and identity. We mostly have our own individualized story, history, desires and identity that we are acting and playing out from day to day and moment to moment. This is 'me' and that is everything else. This is my story, my history, my past, present and future. These are my desires and needs.
Again I think at this level of mind-consciousness and knowing most of us would easily agree with this. So even though this feeling and thought of our individual identification and separateness in relationship to sensory objects and the sensory world of things, creations and forms has come into being out of there being no idea, belief or notion of self, we somehow immediately become easily identified with it as being who and what we are in relationship to everything else as being separate, substantial and real. I experience a body, therefore I am the body or at least the 'I' that is aware of having a so-called form called 'body'. I experience a mind therefore I am the mind or I am what the mind thinks and knows to be me or I am that, that has the awareness and knowing of mind and body. We experience a sense of 'I' in relationship to the mind/body experience and now this 'I' is me. All that 'I' experience becomes personal to me, and therefore I become emotionally invested in it. It is all happening to 'me' and 'I' am the one who is having and knowing experience. There is this objective and ever-changing phenomenal world of things and forms and I am the 'I' that is experiencing it. This is 'me' or 'I' who is having and knowing experience whether I am affected or unaffected by it. There is an ever-changing mental drama and story of the individualized embodied self that is being acted and played out as 'me' in the mind and with the body.
What is this?
Who am I?
KNOWING THE REAL
'I-am. Life is'. If we deny this fact then who or what is it that denies it?
Nothing particular new here of course in this basic understanding and knowing of experience and the ever-changing worldly conditions, needs, constructs and demands of our ever-changing limited and vulnerable embodied humanity. It essentially feels this way for most of us who have a feeling and sense of self-awareness and self-image in relationship to worldly experience and the ever-changing phenomenal world of things, forms, constructs and dramas; despite it all being transitory, empty, uncertain, unreliable, impersonal and selfless. Our individualized self-image and persona can largely be dictated and played out by our physical appearance, experiences, thoughts, moods and feelings; how we think, feel, interpret and act.
Basically, what we tell ourselves and what we emotionally invest in and buy into becomes our held to reality, drama or story, which we reinforce and support with beliefs, ideas, views, notions and opinions. The same is true with the phenomenal world. The phenomenal world is seen and felt as something that is distinct and existing separate and apart from ourselves and others. And from this on-going and ever-changing relationship with phenomena we create our identity and our story about experience and the world of experience. We mentally create, manufacture and build with beliefs, ideas, views and opinions, how we see ourselves and the world we inhabit. All the time experience is a kind of fiction played out in the workings of the individualized mind and in the self-awareness and self-image of knowing. Even the mind when directly investigated and examined is not an absolute thing in and of itself. It is simply seen and realized to be an ever-changing bundle of thoughts, mental impressions, opinions, impulses and ideas, which too are transitory, empty, unreal, impersonal and insubstantial. And yet most of us are completely unaware of this.
Most of our day-to-day experience happens in an unconscious and non-investigated or non-examined way. We mostly spend our time craving, avoiding and chasing after experience, urges and things rather than actually stopping, investigating, questioning and examining what experience, identity and reality actually are. We rarely recognize and know in the act of thinking that a thought is simply that, a thought. We completely assume it all to be real, reliable and permanent despite most of it being relative only to our interpretation, belief and idea of experience. We rarely consider what it is that we are expecting to gain and keep by chasing, avoiding and acquiring experiences and things that are impermanent, unreliable, uncertain and transitory. We are mostly ignorant to the fact that 'Only God is Real' as the eternal 'I-am', and everything else is illusionary, or should I say completely lacking permanence. Most of us are completely unaware of our true abiding identity with the Absolute and therefore we have no knowledge of our true boundless nature, origin and essence which is untouched, unthreatened, unlimited and unchanged by the coming and going of all phenomenal things, events, forms, creations and dramas - pure 'Spirit'.
Let me put it to you another way -
The inner workings and contents of the mind are like the idea and concept of 'Tuesday'. When we directly investigate and examine the idea and concept of 'Tuesday', we realize that it doesn't really exist in and of itself. We didn't suddenly discover and come across an individualized thing or object called 'Tuesday'. It has no real independent existence other than us creating the very mind-made idea and concept of 'Tuesday'. In fact, there really is no 'Tuesday'. It exists as an idea, as a mind-made created construct and notion and yet it doesn't really exist. It is simply made up and agreed on as a social construct in the convenience and conceptual needs of time, space and form. 'Tuesday' is just something we all choose to agree on, and yet in reality there really is no 'Tuesday'. It is simply made up, agreed on and held to as a way to organize and plan our lives. And yet in our daily lives we so easily forget this. And so too with the individualized conceptual mind. When closely investigated and examined the mind is simply an ever-changing and transitory bundle of thoughts, mental impressions, perceptions, impulses and ideas, which have no lasting and substantial existence other than the importance we place on them. We simply mistake what is unreal for being real. We so easily buy into what is insubstantial as being substantial. We assume what is impermanent to be permanent. We mostly remain ignorant and blind to the fact that 'Only God is Real' as the undying 'I-am' and everything else is illusion.
Let me put it to you another way -
The inner workings and contents of the mind are like the idea and concept of 'Tuesday'. When we directly investigate and examine the idea and concept of 'Tuesday', we realize that it doesn't really exist in and of itself. We didn't suddenly discover and come across an individualized thing or object called 'Tuesday'. It has no real independent existence other than us creating the very mind-made idea and concept of 'Tuesday'. In fact, there really is no 'Tuesday'. It exists as an idea, as a mind-made created construct and notion and yet it doesn't really exist. It is simply made up and agreed on as a social construct in the convenience and conceptual needs of time, space and form. 'Tuesday' is just something we all choose to agree on, and yet in reality there really is no 'Tuesday'. It is simply made up, agreed on and held to as a way to organize and plan our lives. And yet in our daily lives we so easily forget this. And so too with the individualized conceptual mind. When closely investigated and examined the mind is simply an ever-changing and transitory bundle of thoughts, mental impressions, perceptions, impulses and ideas, which have no lasting and substantial existence other than the importance we place on them. We simply mistake what is unreal for being real. We so easily buy into what is insubstantial as being substantial. We assume what is impermanent to be permanent. We mostly remain ignorant and blind to the fact that 'Only God is Real' as the undying 'I-am' and everything else is illusion.
What is this?
Who am I?
In truth, there is only ever now, or should I say 'I-am' and this 'I-am' requires no actual name, idea, opinion, belief, location, construct, definition, form, name or label. Of course names and labels are useful as a necessary convenience for social interaction and social structure, but they are only mind-made constructs, so we can act in a mostly organized and coherent way to support and play out our humanity with some level of sanity and structure for however long that might last. So to conclude, 'Tuesday' is not real. It is simply made up and agreed on. This is stated here to purely demonstrate how easily we buy into ideas, beliefs, opinions, constructs and concepts of reality, experience and identity without ever stopping, questioning or investigating and examining them for what they really are. We easily forget that 'Tuesday' is not real. It exist as a shared idea and concept and yet it does not really exist as a real thing in itself.
To simply clarify again, we so easily mistake the unreal for being the real and the impermanent for being permanent. We so easily forget that all conditioned life and phenomena are transitory, empty, unreal, impersonal and impermanent. That, as a consequence of change nothing is really permanent in our lives. Nothing truly belongs to us indefinitely. This is the very nature of things. It is simply the way things are. What is here and now today, could be easily gone tomorrow. Nothing, however small or seemingly insignificant can be taken for granted. It is all empty of any real lasting permanence. Only God is Real as the undying and ever-present 'I-am'. I do not say any this to be pessimistic or down on life. Life is a beautiful and miraculous thing and yet it is also unreliable, imperfect and uncertain.
Of course, we can still be in the world, and yet not of the world, and everything else will be all the better for it, with the pure being of 'I-am'. No-thing need happen and yet everything can happen. No-thing need change and yet everything can change. No-thing need be done and yet all things will and can be done. This is the peace, love, freedom, beauty, plenitude, simplicity and fulfilment of pure 'Spirit'. Only God is Real as the eternal 'I-am'. The Deathless Self alone is. For me, this is the highest truth for the one who has realized their true abiding identity with the Absolute. All is the Deathless Self alone.
I am the 'I-am' of I am.
This is the esoteric message and truth of Atman-Yoga. The Deathless Self alone is.
Atman-Yoga Daily Mantra: "I am. Life is. I am one with all life and all life is one with me. Oneness in body. Oneness in mind. Oneness in all things."
Atman-Yoga Daily Meditation: 'Only God is real' as the eternal 'I-am'.
Song of the Deathless Yogi:
I am 'emptiness'. All is 'emptiness'. 'Emptiness' is all.
Form is 'emptiness'. Only 'emptiness'. 'Emptiness' is form'.
This esoteric blog is dedicated to my earthly mother 'Rita' who transitioned on the 12th December 2021. A truly selfless, kind, beautiful and loving embodied soul, friend and mother.
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