I was walking along the stream behind my house this morning clearing the path from all the fallen branches after a very windy night. I was thinking what great metaphor for this blog. I write to clear the debris from the thoughts and emotions that clog up your and my life. I help clear the path to more awareness and consciousness. At least I think I do? I hope that is your experience?
Let’s take this a little higher today and explore who you and I are. I was thinking about who I was in the way of self-inquiry. I find self-inquiry important to do regularly because exploring my nature seems essential to growth. The by-product of that self-searching always feels positive to me. I feel very alive and connected to a part of me that seems almost endless. That may sound kind of odd but from what I can tell quite possible.
Let me tell you more about what I was exploring from a kind of intuitive/awareness place in me. Hang in here with me because I think you will find this interesting. I was more aware that there is a part of me that has always been and will always be. I, in some form, existed before this birth and that form will continue after I die.
How did I come up with that idea? Well I started asking myself who I was. I inquired into what made up this person writing this blog. I first thought about my ego and personality. I decide that wasn’t me but more my learned ways of adapting to the conditioning I have received.
I also sensed that I wasn’t my thoughts or my feeling since they seem to come and go without any ground in a deeper reality. Yikes this is sounding kind of out there isn’t it? Be aware what feels right to you as I go along this path.
Next I considered the body as my defining moment but it isn’t. Instead, my body feels much more like the frame I am in, rather then who I am. So if I am not my body, mind, emotions or personality, then who am I?
This part is much more challenging to write because words seem so limited and confining? Here is what it seems like to me. I am moment to moment awareness living in the story of me. Much of the time I fall out of awareness and instead walk the trance of life and live it as if it is real. Does this make any sense to you?
The story of your and my life seems real much of the time. Is it? Are you and I this life we have created or something different. I highly suspect we are much more then our life and the story we are living in. Let me offer an idea here. This idea, that the story we are living in is real, is the cause of all of our suffering and struggle. Imagine if you could step aside and see the story as just a story and that you could watch it impartially. Can you imagine that? How would your experience of life change if you were able to be free enough to be in it but not caught up in the drama?
This self-inquiry is very powerful because the more you do it the more clarity you gain and the less you are attached to the story. This does not mean you pull away and don’t care. It is more that you are can travel through your life in the freedom to be moment to moment with joy and love always at your side. Free to be, free to love, free to be joyous, free to be at peace.
I hope you found this exploration helpful and that in some way the path was made clearer. Please let me know by comments or email at explorelifeblog@gmail.com.
There is a wonderful teacher of self-inquiry in Ojai, California who has a website with writings and podcasts that always takes me higher. His name is John Sherman and his site is www.riverganga.org.