The Many Faces of the One: article 22 - the unpublished esoteric writings of an aging yogi.
'I-am 'Spirit' daily affirmation
"Realizing and knowing that pure 'Spirit' is present within me in every moment and all times, I trust and know that divine guidance is always available to me in all facets and areas of my life. I feel pure 'Spirit's' presence blessing, guiding and surrounding me. All my actions are guided and acted in the awareness, knowledge and knowing of pure 'Spirit'. I am always fully one with pure 'Spirit'. In the awareness, knowledge and knowing of pure 'Spirit' I am continuously inspired and strengthened to be all that I am created and intended to be. With pure 'Spirit' I too am always free to be what I was created and intended to be. I fully trust in pure 'Spirit' for the perfect outcome in all facets and areas of my life. With pure 'Spirit' I always remain calm, focused and centred. All that I am has its foundation and trust in the knowledge and knowing of pure 'Spirit'. I always acknowledge and honour pure 'Spirit' in all things. Being aware of pure 'Spirit' in all areas and facets of my life I only ever act on what honours the awareness, knowledge and knowing of pure 'Spirit'. I am always one with pure 'Spirit'. I fully radiate pure 'Spirit' at all times, in all places and in all my thoughts and actions. I am always deeply connected and at one with pure 'Spirit'. OM, shanti, shanti, shanti. 'I-am', peace, peace peace.
WHAT IS ENOUGH?
Pure Being is not concerned with age, gender, race, history, sexuality, status, co-dependency, space, time and form. It is completely free of all these things, and the self-importance and limitations that attachments to these things can create and impose. It is completely free of any conceptual identity and the need to hold to any opinion or idea of what is right and wrong in order to justify its existence, authority or self-importance. Pure Being exists independent of the self-imposed mental concepts, ideas, opinions, views, agendas, demands and labels of the ever-changing conventional and conceptual world of things, events and dramas. And yet it is one with all things. Pure Being needs no story, no history, no agenda, no drama or purpose to validate its existence. It does not need to do anything, or be anything, or to prove anything, or be superior to anything, or to control anything, or to have anything. It is already one with everything and is everything. Therefore it is content and fulfilled in its own knowing of knowing. It is fulfilled in the spontaneous and impersonal arising of all things, creations and phenomena as temporary expressions of its own Pure Being. Its own Divinity. This is what it is to be 'awake' and to live in the certainty and knowing of the Absolute. Self-realization is the complete removal and end of the false and mistaken notion of 'I-am-the-body' identity and the 'I-am-the-doer' identity. It is the complete removal and end of the false and limiting notion that I have to become and be a 'somebody' before I am whole, fulfilled, worthy, entitled and complete; in order to prove to others and myself that I am also worthy and deserving of love and respect.
In the recognition and awakening of Pure Being, 'Spirit', we realize we are already whole, fulfilled, worthy and complete. For we are all the Self within the Self and as the Self. Due to ignorance of Pure Being we are caught, or should I say the mind is caught, in the mind-made idea that we have to consistently strive to become and be someone better and more in order to be whole, fulfilled, worthy and complete, and to also be worthy and deserving of others love, admiration and respect. This can lead to us never feeling that we are enough, or the world is not enough, or we need to have more in order to be seen to be of value and importance to others. All these self-imposed demands and expectations on us can lead to suffering and a genuine feeling and lack of self-worth, self-acceptance and love. Who and what we are in the world is painfully measured by what we have, who we are, what we do, how we look, how much we have, our social status, and our co-dependency on others and their approval or validation. All this can add to never feeling like that who we are, what we do and what we have is never enough or is never going to be enough. Pure Being is free of all things.
With Pure Being we begin to realize that there is nothing we need be or do, to have or accomplish, to be worthy and deserving of love or to be at peace with what conventional life and what the world is. We are already enough simply in the recognition and knowing of our innate nature of Pure Being. We are already the Self within the Self and with the Self and as the Self, which is already whole, fulfilled, worthy, plentiful and complete. It does not need a story, or drama, or persona, or platform to validate its existence and worthiness. It does not need anything outside of its own Self to validate its Self either. It alone is, and all things have their existence as a consequence of its Pure Being. In fact we lack nothing because we are already one with everything and everything is already one with us. Pure Being is whole, fulfilled, plentiful and complete in and of itself. This is true whether things or worlds exist or not. Nothing can change, lessen, destroy or alter this. You are already that which is independent and free of everything else and what the world looks like or does. You will have no need to impose or force yourself on others or to validate or prove your worthiness to them. You will not impose or force your need for love or fulfilment on others or the world because you will be fulfilled and in and as love as the Self. Everything else will be secondary and therefore false in its ability to create a sense of lack and unworthiness in the world. For the genuine Self-realized soul, the atman-yogi, there is only the one reality; the one reality as the many and yet always remaining as one. It is all Divinity as 'I-am'.
WHAT IS THE ROOT OF 'I'?
It is said that the 'I' thought is the root thought, and if the root is pulled out all all the rest is at the same time uprooted. Therefore find the source of the 'I' thought, and rest in the silence and stillness of 'I-am'. The personalized 'I' is the 'ego'; the 'I' thought. After the arising of the 'I' thought all other thoughts arise. The 'I' thought is seen as the root of all other thoughts. Therefore we endeavor to find the source of the 'I' thought in the stillness and silence of 'I-am'. Self-inquiry into the root of the 'I' thought leads us directly to the Self-realization of Pure Being by the removal and giving up of the all the obstacles which make us think that the Self is not already realized. As atman-yogis we directly investigate and examine where the 'I' thought arises from then it will cease to exist as a thing in itself. Closely investigate and examine where the mind arises from and this too will cease to exist as a thing in itself; the mind simply being a bundle of thoughts and mental impressions. The mind is a temporary and changing construct that has no intrinsic separate existence. It is not a thing in itself. What we call the mind is really a bundle of thoughts and mental impressions, and these thoughts and mental impressions when investigated and examined have no permanent and solid existence. Hence why they are said to be unreal. Rather than having the focus of the mind turned outwards loosing itself to thoughts and sense objects we turn the mind inwards to realizes the Self. We ask, 'who am I' in the silence and stillness of 'I-am'? Even to ask is perhaps too much. Simply rest in the silence and stillness as 'I-am' - unmoving, unchanging, desireless and at peace
If it helps you can simply meditate on the wise words of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, "just sit and know that 'you are' the 'I am' without words, nothing else has to be done; shortly you will arrive to your natural Absolute state." Or in the words of the Buddha, "Better a single day of life seeing the reality of arising and passing away than a hundred years of existence remaining blind to it." Again simply rest awake in the stillness and silence of 'I-am'. Let all come to rest in the stillness and silence of 'I-am'. Turn the mind inwards, away from sensory objects, to the silence and stillness of knowing. In this way you will see things for what they really are.
Being someone requires effort. Being the Self requires none. We are already the Self, and yet our ignorance of it causes us to act in the effort to know it. Knowing the true Self involves the undoing of the effort to be someone or something. Pure Being is our natural state as 'I-am'; no effort need be made on its part. All effort is at the consequence of the identity with the mind/body experience as 'I'. It is the mind/body identity that creates the idea of effort. It is this 'I-am-the-body' that creates the idea of effort in order to become and be something or someone. We have mostly forgotten Pure Being and wrongly mistaken the mind/body experience to be real, and assumed the identity of all that is unreal. We have mistaken the unreal as the real. We are already the Self and no effort really need to be made or done, but our ignorance causes us to make the effort to realize it when in fact it is already realized as 'I-am'. It is the mind that creates the idea and concepts of path, destination, separation, journey and goal. Being someone or something requires us to do something. Being as the Self, Pure Being, requires nothing of us as it already is. It is whole, perfected, plentiful and complete. As already stated being someone requires effort on our part. It takes birth in the mind with the arising of the 'I' thought from the silence and stillness of 'I-am'. Pure Being requires no effort in and of itself as it essentially what we truly are. It is our natural, unconditioned, pristine, desireless and pure state. And we are always this in all situations, dramas, conditions and circumstances. Being someone and doing something is caught and identified with the mind/body experience.
WHO WAS 'I' BEFORE 'I' ARRIVE?
In Atman-Yoga what we are invited to do as atman-yogis is to relinquish everything that is false in order to realize our unity and identification with Pure Being. Self-realization is the intuitive and experiential understanding and knowledge through the silence and stillness of 'I-am' of the unbroken unity of reality and identity as one reality as Pure Being. Remaining as Pure Being because we are Pure Being. As Pure Being there is nothing that need be done, and yet all things are and can be done. With Pure Being there is nothing that need happen, and yet everything can and does happen. With Pure Being there is nothing that need change and yet everything can and does change. And with Pure Being all things are done or undone, and yet Pure Being remains unchanged, unmoved, complete and effortless.
This Self of Pure Being must be fully realized and known by direct experiencing and knowledge. To simply be told it is not enough, even though the mind might think it. It is a experiential knowing that transcends the intellect and mind. It is beyond thinking and reasoning. Therefore as instructed we take this exploration of Pure Being with the silence and stillness of 'I-am'. Who am I? What is this?
This is the essential and core 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."
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.
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