Who Is This ‘I’ I Call Myself?

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS on ‘The 5 Myths About Enlightenment’. It’s important to realize that you cannot locate Consciousness, you can only BE it. Just like an eye can see everything but itself, whatever Consciousness is aware of is not IT. For the moment you say “this” is Consciousness, you then have to ask, what is aware of this? See the dilemma?

There is a term in Hindu Sanskrit called, “neti neti,” which means “not this, not this”. This is often used as practice to finding your way back home. For example, you would look at a tree and ask, “Am I the tree or what is aware of it?” Since you are aware of the tree you know that you cannot be the tree. And you do this with every object your eyes land on, including your body.

At first the mind will try to say, “But ‘I’ am aware of this!” But then you have to ask, “What knows or is aware of this ‘I’ that claims to know the tree?” And the mind says, “me!” And you ask, “And what is aware of this “me”? If you keep asking, “And what is aware of this?” to whatever answer the mind comes up with, eventually the mind quiets down as it sees that it has run out of answers. And so, you end up in silence.

The key is you have to actually do this exercise so that the understanding goes from being intellectual to experiential. It is known not by believing what someone else says, but is confirmed by your own direct experience.

And you keep doing it over and over until it becomes obvious that whatever you are aware of cannot be you. And suddenly, it can dawn on you that what you have always been looking for is THAT which is looking…

Links to the 5 Myths About Enlightenment: Myth1 – Myths 2 and 3 – Myth 4 – Myth 5.

Dan’s Quote: “Intellectual understanding is of the ego. 
_____________Experiential understanding is of the soul.”

         

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