The Many Faces of the One

What is this?

Who am I?

The Many Faces of the One - article 12  - the unpublished esoteric writings of an aging yogi.

"I always stand firm in my faith and trust that pure 'Spirit' is the answer and fulfilment of every need and requirement in all areas and facets of my life. I always act on whatever honors 'Spirit' and all that 'Spirit' has created. I am free to be all that 'Spirit' intended and created me to be. I always feel 'Spirit's' presence blessing and surrounding me in all facets and areas of my life. I know that divine guidance is always available to me. With my faith and trust firmly established in pure 'Spirit' I easily and fully accomplish and fulfil all things. 'Spirit' is the one and permanent source and provider of all power. I radiate pure 'Spirit' at all times, in all places and in all my thoughts, deeds and actions. I am always deeply connected and at one with pure 'Spirit'. OM, shanti, shanti, shanti. 'I am', peace, peace peace."

I am the 'I-am' of I am.

       continued from the collected esoteric writings and works of article 11

WHAT IT IS TO BE MYSELF

If we dwell too much on what appears to be hopeless and meaningless it is very easy to become and be immobilized in fear, hopelessness, doubt, confusion and frustration. And yet, life is what it is, and we all share the experience of living it as 'I-am' and 'life is'. We all experience a so-called subject of experience that looks out into the world from a mind/body embodied experience of self-awareness and self-knowing. Whether we find ourselves in favorable or unfavorable circumstances, conditions or situations this we all share in some manner, condition and form. This is the price we have all paid in having the advantage and perhaps disadvantage of being self-aware and having self-awareness. As I see it, it is both a blessing and a curse of our limited, temporary and embodied humanity.

Despite all the multiple of choices and opportunities that we can have and take advantage of in being self-aware, we also have the knowing and uncertainty of not knowing how little or much time we have in living and playing out this fragile embodied mind/body experience and it is the same for us all. We all know with self-awareness that the mind/body experience does not last indefinitely, and all that we desire, like and love will have to be given up and surrendered in the end. Is this a bad thing? No, it simply is how it is. What appears eventually disappears. What has a beginning has an end. What was once new and fresh will become old and tired. This is the nature and cycle of birth, old age, decay, dis-ease and death. This is the consequence of 'becoming' and 'being'.

Yes, we can as a result of self-awareness and mind-consciousness directly examine and investigate the nature and essence of the mind\body experience. We are in the genuine and fortunate position to know what is the permanent source, origin and essence of all experience, creation and phenomena. This is definitely not something we should ever overlook or take for granted. We are in the welcomed and blessed position to wake up from the sleep and suffering of ignorance and to live in the spiritual and transcendental grace, recognition and complete knowing of Self-Realization. We, in our on-going humanity, are in the position to ask ourselves in the self-inquiry and contemplation of 'I-am'. Life is', "who or what is the true knower and experiencer of all that that is known and experienced? What is this knowing and what, if anything, is the original source and essence of this knowing of knowing. What we call the knower - the one who knows.

What is this?

Who am I?

'I-am'. Life is. We are finite and perfect expressions of the infinite essence and source of all life. Temporary and yet eternal. Seemingly imperfect and flawed and yet perfect, complete and whole. Even now, in the knowing of, 'I-am. Life is', I alone am. I am the 'I-am' of I am.

                                                KNOWING THE TRUTH OF REALITY

In the pursuit of spiritual Self-realization returning to the original source of all creation is what is asked of us. Even though this is only the urges and impulses of the mind, we still endeavor to play it out. To exhaust the mind of its held to limited ideas, views, opinions and beliefs of reality, experience and identity, and its need to control the playing out of all the events and dramas of conditioned and conceptual life. It is the removal of all that is false and the full recognition, knowing and acknowledgement that we have been mistaken about who we really are and what reality, experience and identity really are. We have had a mistaken and misinformed idea and notion of what reality and identity are. Due to our temporary humanity we seek to be continuously fulfilled and self-satisfied and free of the misery, burden and struggle that life can potentially inflict on us and others. 

In the spiritual Self-realization and knowing of our true nature and essence we are already perfect, whole, free of suffering, liberated and complete, as we are. and yet due to the conditioning and urges of the mind and its identity with the body, we are mistakenly caught up in the false idea, view and construct of separation and individuality. And yet, "who is it that is caught up? "Who is the one who feels burdened and troubled by life? Spiritual Awakening and Self-realization asks us to put aside and to eventually relinquish and release the mistaken identification and self-importance that is placed on all that is appearing, changing and disappearing in our lives, and to wake up and establish one's true identity with the impersonal, unchanging and deathless source. This source being the origin and essence of all experience, identity and phenomena. This should be approached and actualized as the highest spiritual endeavor in our embodied humanity beyond everything else because everything, and I mean everything, will be enriched, freed and loved in the actualization of this spiritual pursuit. In this actualization of the Deathless Self all is realized as oneself. All is loved, free and at peace in this pure realizing and knowing of pure 'Spirit'. It is the only true and satisfactory way that permanently releases us all from the attachments and burdens of conditioned and conceptual life. Anything else that we might do in order to be free of the things and dramas that burden, worry and trouble us or others will only be temporary states of happiness, peace and satisfaction. If we do not wake up from the sleep of ignorance, we will only be met once again with the feeling and impulse of unhappiness, restlessness, self-doubt and dissatisfaction with what life is, and the way things are in the world. There will always be something to be unhappy and upset about in life and complaining is certainly draining.

PURE BEING

What spiritual Self-realization is asking us to do is to lessen and weaken our self-interest and self-importance in all that is appearing, changing and disappearing in our mind/body experience of the phenomena we call world, including our identity with the mind/body experience, and to seek the true origin and identity of all experience and experiencing. It is a genuine invitation to actualize and directly know the one true and enduring source and essence of all creation, forms and experience. We are asked to discover and find the the one permanent and inexhaustible source and identity of all experience beyond the constructs, ideas, views and concepts of time, form and space, and to fully realize that which is not created, does not change and cannot be destroyed. It has no beginning and therefore no end. It is completely free of birth, old age, decay, sickness, dis-ease, change and death. It is free of suffering and the end of suffering. It is a Truth that is unburdened and fully free of all that is, and all that will ever be. It is a Truth that transcends the constructs, limitations and trappings of time, form and space. It is a Truth that transcends and is free of the confines and conditions the mind/body experience. It is a Truth that is already realized, free, unburdened and deathless. We are asked to discover and realize that which does not rely on the existence or need of time, form and space. It does not come into existence and therefore it always is. It is not something that we need to acquire or find, for it always is. Even now it is.

It is the 'I-am' of I am.

The irony of this spiritual endeavor is that we already are what we seek to become and be. In fact, we don't have to become and be it, for it is what we already are. And yet we assume we are what we think, feel and experience. I experience the body therefore I must be the body. I experience thoughts and feelings, therefore I must be what I think and feel I am. Our identity becomes what we think, see and feel it to be, and yet what we think, see and feel is itself temporary and empty of anything permanent and personal. What we aim to wake up to is ourselves, as our pure unconditioned and unmade essence. There is no becoming and being, as these are the urges, tendencies and conditions of the mind. We don't have to become and be what we already are. What we have to do is give up and surrender what we keep becoming and being, to give up all that is false, the 'I am this' or 'I am that' and then our true essence, identity and nature shines and radiates unhindered, known and free of all that the world is and yet it is one with all things and all things are one with it. In fact, this is what it is always doing. We have simply forgotten. The thought of 'I' is not the Self. And yet the thought of 'I' is not separate from the Self. The waves are not the ocean and yet they are always one with the ocean. The waves and the ocean are one. It is only appearances and our identity with them that create the idea of separation.

                    This is the message 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'. All is this.

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. 

Post article note 2023: I have included written and compiled spiritual affirmations which were created and came together over the changing years of personal spiritual practice and self-inquiry. They are only included here as an exercise in unraveling the mind and its held to mental habits, views and tendencies. The more the truth of Reality is recognized and established they can simply be discarded. I attach no self-importance to them. I known for a period of so-called time I found them useful. They are only here because they too were part of the works and writings I had put together. Potentially they are all pointers to something which is calling to its true Self. This being Reality as it is.