Be open to the possibility that you’re not who you think you are – that the individual self that you think of as ‘me’ is an illusion.

Be open to the possibility that your real self exists prior to, during, and after any manifestation of a body, mind, or world has come and gone.

Be open to the possibility that this real self is unlimited, boundless, without beginning or end. Is not born and never dies.

Be open to the possibility that no words can begin to describe your infinite and eternal being. That you, we, I, are beyond all concepts, cannot be found, and yet are everywhere and contain all things.

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If you take an honest look at the qualities that make up your so-called personal ‘me’, the one seemingly mired down in the drama and complexities of every-day life, all you find is a cluster of fleeting thoughts, images, feelings, sensations, and perceptions, none of them with any more staying power than a cloud in the sky.

A cloud appears and disappears in the sky. It can’t come from beyond the sky – no boundary to the sky has ever been found – so it must be made of the sky. Likewise, a thought appears and disappears in awareness, an ever-present knowing awareness. It can’t come from beyond awareness – no boundary to awareness has ever been found – so it must be made of awareness.

~*~*~*~

All these things that you once thought you were – a thought, emotion, sensation – are irrefutably exposed as temporary, finite appearances and therefore can’t be considered your real identity. Only that which never comes and goes can be considered real.

So who are you?

Be open to the possibility that there is something indefinable and unchanging in you, as you, from which all experiences, all appearances, arise. Call it ever-present awareness, or unlimited consciousness, or an all-knowing unknowable knowing.

And why would you be open to this possibility? Because at your core you know and feel that this is your true identity.

Actually, you have to make no effort to be open, as this is your natural state. Just as the bud of a flower opens naturally in the warm light of the sun, our essential being opens naturally in the warm light of awareness, the background of all experience.

Simply being aware that you are aware – that your essential being is awareness itself – is all that is needed to allow your separate, individual, contracted self to open naturally and dissolve in the warm embracing light of this knowing presence that is always with you. Is you.

Be Open

Open

Be