The fundamental question: who am I?
Transcript:
This is in reply to a very dear friend, who was asked the unanswerable question. They don’t actually know it, but what they were asking is “Who am I?” – and there isn’t an answer to ‘Who am I?’
Let’s try and explain that. You see, what happens is, when we start to look to become more conscious, what we do is, we take care of the easy things first. The things that are not going to disturb anything too much. We just take care of this, take care of that…so incremental changes, and life does improve. Things do seem to get better.
So what the fundamental energy inside says, “We’re doing fine – just leave it alone”, but you see – nothing really happens until you take care of the fundamental; and the fundamental is “who am I”; and, I’m going to try and explain that.
You see, what Jesus is quoted as saying is something that is fundamental, but we don’t understand it. He said, unless you die and are reborn…..” but that’s a tricky reply actually, because when you die, you are not reborn!
So, when we try to answer somebody’s fundamental, there is a very strong mechanism in all of us to avoid connecting with what’s being told. Because – it goes like this. Your fundamental energy is designed to help you survive in this dimension, the way it looks to you; and that’s about being safe, secure and predictable. So, your fundamental energy does not want to let you hear what you need to hear if you want to go beyond what you are experiencing as ‘reality’ – which is one level of what is.
There is something else. If you check up on all the people that have had genuine realisations, or people that have had near death experiences, you will hear the same story, over and over and over. What we see as reality is an illusion – what they say in the East is Maya – a play, a game.
Now, I will come back again and say, our fundamental survival mechanism does not want us to see that and that is it’s job; and if you want to have a realisation beyond that, you have got to say “thank you very much. I hear what you’re saying, and I’m going to take a risk anyway.” I’m going to risk dying, not knowing whether I am going to be reborn or not, not knowing whether what all these people have said, and I’ve read and heard, is correct; I don’t know if it’s true or not – I can’t know whether it’s true or not – but I’m going to take the risk. This has now become my fundamental aim in life: to die to what I think I know, and see if anything emerges on the other side.
Just as an aside – nothing emerges on the other side – and everything is on the other side. And when I say it doesn’t emerge, it doesn’t emerge as a separation, and that can’t be explained, because the mind listens in duality – and says that it has to be this or that; but it isn’t either this or that – it’s this AND that; its Neti Neti.
When we try to tell a person about their fundamental behaviour, they’ll keep diverting into this, and that, and the other, and saying “Well, we’ll look at this and that”, but won’t look at the fundamental.
Now, this particular person is beloved to a whole number of us, and we have tried to tell them that there is a fundamental place that they’re holding, but they’re not hearing, they’re not letting it in.
So how come, with these people who obvious love and care for this person – how come they’re not letting it in? Because their whole life would be shattered….smashed …..destroyed. They, as they know themselves, would also be utterly destroyed! Their character, their personality, their habits, their behaviours, their whole approach to life – everything they think they know and don’t know, the very foundation they are standing on, would disappear; and not only disappear!
You see, this is the thing that is really hard to explain; when this thing happens, where you no longer know anything, …what the senses are picking up – not only do you not know who you are you – now listen carefully – you don’t know who it is that doesn’t know who it is! Do you think you can get a glimpse of that? Everything is gone! Everything! You don’t have a position to look at a position. There’s no position!
So you can’t say “Oh, yes – I can see this happening”, because ‘this’ has no foundation – nothing has any foundation – it’s all gone! The ‘dark night of the soul’ – that’s the bit in the middle. This is no longer relevant for you, and you haven’t yet emerged into the unpronounceable, the very foundation.
Now, ‘clever’ people are very clever. So what they keep doing is saying “Yes, I’m listening – I’m listening”, but they’re not listening. They’re trying to divert you. “Look, you said this, and you said that, and I’m doing this, and I’m doing that…” No, no! You see, unless you listen and let it in – that nothing, nothing, nothing is the way you think it is, including you, the one that is looking, that can’t see the way things are! Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!
When my eldest daughter, Ryan, was very young, and we lived in India, with the guru, she used to go around with a little mantra. It went like this: “Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, do do do do do do do do, nothing, nothing”.
Nothing! Nothing! Nothing is the way you thought it is – and yet, nothing changes! Everything is the same. Zen says, ‘ when you enter the stage when rivers are no longer rivers, mountains are no longer mountains.’ That is right – everything dissolves. And then mountains are mountains, and rivers are rivers – but now it’s very different! Very, very different!
Alan Steinfeld sent me an interview with Bashar today, and it’s very, very good. I concur exactly with what he’s saying! The only differences between what he is saying – and my experience – is it doesn’t actually work that way for me. I know it is the way he’s talking, and the ‘shift into’ doesn’t seem to have happened.
You see, wherever you get to, it seems there’s another level. In the East, they talk about ‘enlightenment’ as though that is the place, but that isn’t my experience. I keep finding another level, and saying “oooh! THIS is what they were saying! And then there’s another level, and another level!
As Jesus tried to explain, “When you see the inner as the outer, and the outer as the inner, the up as the down, and the down as the up” – when you let go of every idea, of everything, when you let go of your father and your mother, when you take no thought of tomorrow – when you let everything go, then you think you’re going to be….. Well! You’re not! You see – that’s it! You’re not, and yet you are! We can’t explain that. Nobody’s explained that – the Tao, the Hidden Harmony, the Kingdom of God, ‘the peace that passeth all understanding’, it can’t be explained.
It can’t be explained to a mind that works in duality, because it’s not this, or that – it’s this AND that, and the mind can’t handle that. It’s just…….it’s just!
So, you could take this as a little exercise; you’re dealing with details, and that’s fine – they need to be taken care of – but you’re not going to – what we call “Wake Up” – until you’re ready to go to sleep. You’re not going to wake up till you’re ready to die – die to everything you know, in every way – including what you think I’m saying now!
Everything! Everything! Die to everything, and absolutely not know anything, including who it is that doesn’t know anything! And until then, that clever little survival mechanism of yours will keep saying “Oh, yes! We’ve got that” and “Oh, yes! we’ll take care of that’ – but no! It won’t.
Unless you die!
And rebirth is not what you think!
It is unexplainable!
And it is there, here, and there.
Now, in this very moment.