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Om Mani Padme Hum
There is a force within which gives you life - (BE) that...
In your body lies a priceless gem - (BE) that... O, wandering soul, if you want to find the greatest treasure, don't look outside - look inside, and (BE) that - Rumi (I've replaced Rumi's 'seek' for 'BE') |
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Who am I - really?
This is a question I've been asking my whole life.... and the seeking for the answer has been my life orientation - to find out what's Real..., what's True... The only thing I know for sure is that I exist. Besides that, I seem to be both the physical body-mind my parents named Lauren - with a personality, labels, roles, conditioning, imperfections.... - and what some call Being - that silent, still part of me (and everyone) that is always present, always watching, always knowing... As Lauren, I studied Psychology and Education at university in South Africa - in the hope that Psychology would shed some light on the existential questions, but I graduated disappointed. In my mid- twenties, whilst living in London and working in the field of Learning Disabilities, I fell in love with Yoga and became a Yoga teacher a few years later. Around that time, I also did a pilgrimage in India, following the Ganges river from its source in the Himalaya to its merging with the Sea of Bengal in Calcutta. It was a trip that made my search for Reality ever more pertinent - I was given an amazing gift - a glimpse of Reality where 'I' disappeared and Truth was known with absolute clarity. As for Being, Jiddu Krishnamurti explains it beautifully: "What you are... what you actually are, is Being. Being is not the mind thinking. Thinking is a movement, a motion. Being is the silence that precedes the motion. You cannot see it, you cannot grasp it because you are it. The unadorned naked Awareness that is always there, rarely heeded, is what you have always been, always will be. Cannot not be. You can't look for it because it is what is looking. It is like space, you can't see it but everything is in it. Everything is it. So I say to you, let its presence warm you, fill you. Be present in the Presence." |
Having devoted 3 decades of this life to the ancient teachings of Yoga and Non-duality, having had a few more glimpses of Truth, lots of meditation and enquiry, and simple day-to-day living, I now have more of an understanding of Being - of who and what I am... than I did as a Psychology student all those years ago. Being is much quieter and more ordinary than any mystical experience or glimpse of Reality I've experienced, and it's always present - unlike an experience that comes and goes - even the blissful ones. Being is simply and always, deeply present. I now realise that 'Who am I?' is not a question to be answered - but a beautiful mystery that can only be lived,...
'You need not reach out for what is already with you!
Your very reaching out makes you miss it!
Give up the idea that you have not found It...
and just let it come into the focus of direct perception, here and now,
by removing all that is of the mind'.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Your very reaching out makes you miss it!
Give up the idea that you have not found It...
and just let it come into the focus of direct perception, here and now,
by removing all that is of the mind'.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj