When The Reality Of “I’ness” Becomes The Illusion Of “me’ness”

Only awareness can be aware of awareness.  The mind is not involved, though; through force of conceptualising habit, it will continue to try to conceptualise awareness by defining it and labelling it or objectifying it in some way.  The experience of “I’ness” is the experience of the aware reality.  The experience of “me’ness” is the experience of the conceptualising mind imposing its labels onto this aware reality.  The former experience is the experience of oneness as we naturally are.  The latter experience is the experience we call separation and is accompanied by fear and thoughts of inadequacy.  It is as though the I has created the mind to perceive and enjoy the world but has the propensity to lose touch with this sense of itself and then get lost in the mind, believing its thoughts about the nature of life.  Inevitably, the mind, which is only really a problem-solving machine, tries to solve the problem of existence. Here, the mind starts to conceptualise existence itself.  The problem lies not with the mind, which is only a servant, but with the apparent loss of the experience of “I’ness”.  This loss is not really a loss, for the reality of “I’ness” can never be lost as it is the foundation of everything, but it is the turning of its attention away from itself towards an object of experience that seems to create this so-called ‘forgetting’ or ‘ignoring’ (both anthropomorphisms to describe this process) of itself.  As this experience of the self becomes a “me,” which by definition is experienced as separate from the environment that the “me” exists within.  This separateness seems to trigger instant existential fear associated with thoughts that appear to be a negative story-filled criticism of the self, and which, when we observe closely, all have in common the underlying theme the self is located in time and space.  We can call this ‘space-timing’ the self.  Therefore we conclude that the mind cannot know the true “I” as it only works on labels, which are very helpful when boiling a kettle but totally inappropriate when defining the self, and indeed it is not the purpose of the mind to know the self.  At best, it can be used as a communication vehicle for explaining the existence of the “I” but carefully to avoid any classification of it.  The “I’ness” is the reality of the aware self that can only be experienced by itself.  The I is free of fear.  The I is boundless and open, and there is no perceived separateness which is why it is fearless.  Then we see that “I ’ness” is the aware reality inside the “me’ness” of thoughts.  It is what makes all forms appear real.  The image of the form is not its reality, that is just its superficial appearance, that is the “me’ness’.  The true, essential, underlying reality is the “I’ness”.   To a greater or lesser degree, for most of us, our sense of identity is a blend of “I’ness” (awareness) and “me’ness” (conceptualisation of the self in space and time).  This entanglement leads people to rely on the intellect to know the self, which embeds this sense of being a limited separate self.  However, once we glimpse the underlying reality of the “I’ness, of awareness and realise this is an experience above and beyond the mind, then in that moment, we are free of any confusing ‘me’ness’.  Out of force of habit, the “me’ness” may re-appear from time to time, but, each time it does, we now have a clear experience of “I’ness” to surround it and inevitably the “me’ness” will, over time, reduce its hold on us.  This does not require us to lose the mind and body to achieve this liberation, as that can still function as the beautiful vehicle for liberated fearless “I’ness” to enjoy this experience we call a Universe.  This dissolving of the “me’ness” is a process that comes about naturally through the strong desire, no matter what, to experience the freedom from fear of the “I’ness”.  The good habit of seeking the experience of the “I’ness” is, in the final analysis, what saves us from the fear of the “me’ness”.  The experience of always trusting the “I’ness”, over the “me’ness” is what confirms we are constantly making the right decision, and in this respect, when the fear of “me’ness” arises, we should not be disturbed but see it as an opportunity to face it squarely,  taking our stand as the “I’ness”, and strengthen our experience of “I’ness”.  As the famous 13th Century Buddhist sage Nichiren Daishonin stated in his writings, after-all, “no one can avoid difficulties, not even saints or sages, strengthen your faith more than ever”.  For faith, we can read the decision in the moment to always take our stand as the “I’ness” in the face of life.

With Love,

Freyja