The Whole Enchilada in Spirituality is Self-realization - This 3 word cue will help you get there
"This is me."
Hello sports fans, and welcome to another edition of “Hone the Spiritual Path to its Essence,” with your host, yours truly.
Before getting to the “This is me” of it all, let’s lay some groundwork.
After many years of studying and mulling the teachings of greats like Ramana Maharshi, Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Michael Singer, Yogananda and Ramakrishna et al, I think the objective of spiritual pursuits can be best expressed in two words: Self-realization.
Which means exactly what it sounds like, though I would add one word to further clarify: True. As in, realizing your true self, as opposed to that other self that most of us identify as.
Our self-created ego
Which self is that? The ego self. That’s the self we create starting in childhood to protect ourselves against the big bad world.
The unfortunate truth for most of humanity is that that self-created ego doesn’t serve us well and, in fact, ends up taking us on a long, slow journey away from the true self that lurks beneath the hard-shelled exterior of the ego.
So…
The spiritual journey is about cracking that ego exterior and letting it wash away so that beautiful, true self can assume its rightful place as King of the Inner Castle.
But how?
The $64,000 question is: How do we do pull this off?
There are myriad paths, but the one most pertinent to this article comes from Ramana Maharshi, one of the holiest beings to ever incarnate in human form, who taught the simplest, most direct path. He called it the “Who am I?” self-enquiry.
Here’s how it works. After a few minutes of relaxed breathing, we ask “Who am I?”
Body part by body part
That is followed by saying, “I am not my feet.” We direct attention to our feet as we say this. As you say this, experience your “I” as separate from your feet.
And it’s true. We are not our feet.
Then do the same for your legs. “I am not my legs.” And place attention on your legs. Experience your “I” as separate from your legs.
Then repeat this for your hands, arms, genitals, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, throat, skin, lungs, liver, kidneys, spleen, heart and intestines. Again, imagine each of these organs inside you and then experience the real you as separate from that organ.
You’re also not your thoughts
Once you’re done doing this with the physical parts of your body, the only thing left are your thoughts. So you say, “I am not these thoughts.”
Ram Dass and Ramana Maharshi take this one step further by saying “I am not the thought ‘I am not my thoughts.’”
Once we do that, there is nothing left but the real “I,” which is the purpose of the meditation.
The idea is that simply doing this exercise repeatedly will result in the ego eventually losing its power and withering away, leaving only the realized self.
While meditating the other day, I came up with something that approaches self-realization from the opposite end; namely, instead of going through what I am not, my exercise starts with what I am.
I can best express this by first pointing to one of my favorite Eckhart Tolle quotes:
“You are never more essentially, more deeply, yourself than when you are still.”
I take that a step further and say that who I am is that state of stillness. I am the stillness itself.
Isn’t that what every spiritual luminary tells us? We aren’t the thought. We’re the consciousness/awareness and yes, stillness, that is aware of the thought.
Long story short, we are consciousness. Yes, you might be a schoolteacher, wife and mom of four kids, but that’s not who you are. At your deepest essence, you’re the consciousness experiencing those roles.
So…
My meditation revelation
That being the case, here’s what happened in my meditation a few days ago. I did my usual “warm up” of settling in and relaxing. Then I did some box breathing. Then I did a body scan.
This all leads to the final phase of my sessions which is best described as mindfulness meditation. This is where I simply sit and notice anything in my field of awareness.
- Faint sounds of cars passing on the street outside my office.
- A sensation of tension/anxiety in my stomach.
- A thought popping up.
I don’t resist any of it. I just notice it, non-judgmentally, and let it pass.
Inevitably, periods arise where there are no sounds, sensations or thoughts. That is stillness.
What I usually do when that happens is follow a cue I learned from my favorite meditation teacher, Adyashanti, who urges us, when we reach this point of stillness, to:
“Let go of the meditator.”
When we do that, we let go of the duality of subject (meditator) and object (sound, sensation, conscious awareness), and we go to a place of nonduality where we’re just the subject…our natural state of awareness or consciousness.
But…
Something occurred to me a few days ago when I experienced stillness. As I was sitting in that state, being the awareness, three short words came to me:
“This is me.”
What does that mean? It means I am directly identifying as that stillness, that consciousness, as being the essence of me. Of who I am.
Obviously, this isn’t the ideal “final” state. Why? Because there’s still this ‘I’ (subject) identifying as the still consciousness (object). Duality.
The meaning of Yoga
Fun, and vital, fact: Yoga literally means union. Union of what? Union of that ‘I’ with the consciousness. They merge together into this union of one, where before there were two. That’s the nondual state we’re all shooting for.
Okay, yada, yada, yada, as the great Jerry Seinfeld would say. What’s the point of all this? Why should you care about the previous 960 words?
Because this “This is me” thing cuts to the quick of everything! If realizing who we truly are is the be-all, end-all of the spiritual journey (it is), then identifying as that whenever we find ourselves in that still state, which is what our true self is, is invaluable.
Strengthening our self-realization
Consciously identifying as still consciousness serves to build and strengthen our identification as that. And the more we do that, the stronger that identification becomes.
Then gradually the tide begins to turn, and we identify less and less as the yappy, jealous, envious, judgmental, insecure, boastful, egoic voice in the head, and more and more as our true self.
And you don’t have to be a meditator to do this, though it is the most direct path.
To any non-meditators, simply become vigilant about noticing when you find yourself in a quiet, still frame of mind. You might be watching a sublime sunset. Or simply staring out your kitchen window as you drink your morning coffee, noticing that your mind is clear of thoughts.
When you notice that stillness, take a few long, slow, deep breaths…Then say, “This is me.”
The takeaway
Realizing the true you is where it’s at, folks.
As such, it behooves us to take advantage of any tool or technique that spurs us along the self-realization path.
So if this resonates with you, try it.
Whether in meditation or in daily life, whenever you feel still inside, notice it and say,
“This is me.”
Because it is.