Enter Presence; be one with stillness; know you are that.
What is the one, most important question you have, knowing its answer would change your life in many wondrous and unpredictable ways? If one hundred people were asked this, it’s likely there would be one hundred different responses. That’s understandable; it’s not a question most people expect to be asked. First, let me give you my one, most important question, to be followed in this book by my heartfelt, earnest attempt to answer it:
At your core, you know you are not your perceptions, ideas, fantasies, emotions, beliefs, or experiences, because all these mental activities are constantly changing. Grateful one moment, ungrateful the next! Tolerant one moment, intolerant the next! Loving one moment, angry the next! Clearly you are not what is going on in your mind. So perhaps the following, more probing questions are in order:
Who is my impersonal, unblemished self?
Who is my non-thinking, non-physical self?
Who is my natural, authentic self?
Is there one, definitive answer to all of these questions that doesn’t change over time? And if so, is it possible to find it?
You, like most people, are overly concerned with living life, failing to realize that you are life. You are the one who is doing all the needless thinking, worrying, and suffering—all the watching and witnessing as you frantically engage with every aspect of the physical world. But who is watching the watcher? Is it possible to stand back, be totally detached, and see yourself do all the watching? If so, who or what is doing that? A final question: Could this also be who you are, your most basic, essential Self?
Once you realize you are not your perceptions, thoughts, mood, or feelings, you have to consider what precedes these often-confusing and hurtful activities. This will also tell you a good deal about the process you will have to follow—and what door to open—if you want to find a substantive answer to the one, key question I have just cited.
Thankfully, as a human being, you are unique and adaptive—indeed evolutionary. You can suspect, introspect, and ponder; you can choose to think or not think (i.e., meditate); and you can conceptualize, contemplate, and evaluate, all in search of truth. From a spiritual perspective, this means you can come to know the Divine and your relationship to it. The answer to my question is now within your grasp. The journey home awaits you.
It is always your mind—and only your mind—
that gets you into trouble; it follows that only your mind
can get you out of it.
The ego in you is destroying your life.
It does this through your mind’s compulsive addiction to form.
Simply put, your thoughts are driving you crazy.
Most people believe that the next moment
is more important—and will be more interesting—
than the present moment, the moment at hand.
This, it could be argued,
is the greatest curse of humankind.