A collection of layers

For most of us, and especially those of us from the 'Westernized-parts' of the world, we tend to have a similar experience.

The experience being discussed here, is how we are born into this world, and before we know it, we get covered with layers and layers of identities. Identities of religion, nationality, expectations from society, and so forth. It is strongly enforced upon us through our families, our communities, and pretty much the whole of society. It happens at home, on the playground, at church, at school. This never stops, and we start to grow into these identities quite quickly. From a very young age, all of these identities and concepts become very solid beliefs for us. So solid, that we already start defending them as toddlers, and this goes on until the day we die.

Sounds a bit morbid, doesn't it? But let's be honest, is this not true? Let's go into more detail.

A great misunderstanding

Throughout all of this, it is not uncommon that at some point in our lives, we intuitively get the feeling of "Wait a minute... this does not feel right."

Does this sound familiar? At some point or another, or maybe even on several occasions, we intuitively feel that what we are doing makes no sense, it does not feel right. But, what to do? This is what everyone else is doing. This is what we are taught to do, and this is all we know, so this must be right, or?

So, we just keep on trucking.

We are not happy, and the world that we are living in is proof of this. This whole module of the world and the way we experience the world, tells us that something is missing. What is missing, is our sense of fulfilment, our sense of happiness and peace.

With happiness, we are not referring to contaminated happiness, such as materialistic wealth and objects of happiness. No, we are talking about true peace and happiness within ourselves. We constantly feel that we are lacking something, that is why we are driven to accumulate more and more things, hoping that these objects would fill the void within our lives.

It is actually a perfect business strategy! We keep creating and receiving more false identities, and we keep accumulating more and more objects, to bring us the happiness that we seek. The happiness that we actually walk away from, each time we take on a new false identity. What a paradox...

See, we are unhappy, because right from the beginning, since we can remember being here, we have been brought up in false beliefs and we have taken on false identities. We have a complete misunderstanding of who we truly are. We don't know our True Identity.

Time to investigate

When we approach life with identities bound to the body and the mind, or rather bound to this whole package of false identities we have been given and created ourselves, we can understand why the world is as it is. This explains why we are having wars, why people are living in fear and motivated by greed. All of this makes perfect sense, when we consider the fact that we do not know who we are.

So, what to do? How do we deal with this? Do we burn down the schools and churches, and attempt to erase our recent history and cultural backgrounds? Do we demand the government to issue us with new ID cards, carrying our true identity? No, it is actually all very simple. We start to investigate ourselves. 

We listen to our intuition that has been telling us that "something is not right" and we check up for ourselves. We investigate internally and we validate whether what we have been told about ourselves is true or not.

Let's be very honest with ourselves for a moment. We are so eager to investigate conspiracies, to fact-check gossip reports or to debate religions and philosophies, but do we ever investigate ourselves? Do we ever sit down and check what is really happening on the inside? No, this is something we mostly regard as insignificant. We can waste hours of stalking people on social media, but we cannot even dedicate a few minutes daily to stalk ourselves.

So, we check up, and this can be done by all of us, regardless of our cultures or beliefs and religions. We all have the capacity to go inwards. It is not a crime to get to know our Self. In fact, when we don't investigate ourselves, we can consider that to be a great sin committed against ourselves.

How to check up

We look at this idea of what we believe to be, and we try to validate this concept of 'me'. We investigate all these layers of identities and roles, and we try to see if any of them really exist.

As soon as we start to scratch the surface, we start to see that these layers of identities are all very vulnerable, they are not very solid. They always depend on other conditions and circumstances to exist. All these ideas and concepts of what we call 'me' actually depend on a bunch of other concepts. Thus, when these other conditions cease to exist, so does this concept of 'me'.

Exciting to know, isn't it!?

When we apply the concept of Neti Neti which means 'Not this, not that' we realize that everything that we have been told and believed to be, we were never truly any of this. We are not this, nor that.

With a combination of honesty and courage, we can meditate and pierce through all these layers and layers of ideas and identities, and go inwards. 

As we investigate internally, we gradually start to realize that everything that we believed ourselves to be, these were actually mere thoughts all the time! All of these identities are actually clouds of energy coming and going, and we are placing labels on them and associating with them, but they were never true or real. We realize that all this time we have been paying attention to what comes and goes, but we never paid attention to what IS. 

At this point, we lose interest in these clouds of thought, and we shift our attention from the habitual, objective experience we usually have, and we focus on the subject of experience. We focus on the observer, the witness. We explore this inner path.

Through meditation, we can investigate deeper and deeper, cutting through all these layers of identities, and resting more and more in what is. 

As we rest in this, our True Nature becomes clear to us. Our True Identities which has been in the background all along, shifts to the foreground and it becomes obvious.

What becomes clear to us, is nothing new. It is not something that was not there before, but started to be here now. We don't discover anything new, we merely discover what has been there all along. All this time, we were simply overlooking it. It is so close to us, so intimate, and we realize that all this time, we have been seeking for an objective experience, while actually, what we were seeking for, is exactly who we are and have been all along!

A shift in consciousness

Now okay, as readers we may feel that this article took a huge turn. We started out with the unhappiness of the world, and now we are discussing our True Nature. How do we connect the two?

See, when we realize who we are, this brings us real peace and fulfilment. It is not that we find a separate object of peace and fulfilment within ourselves, no. The knowledge and understanding of who we truly are, this shatters all the illusions we had about ourselves and others.

When we know our Self, we know the Self of everyone and everything else too. Through this, the false identities we have been defending and nurturing dissolve, as well as the disturbance and unhappiness that they cause, including all the shortcomings and lacks accompanied by them. They all dissolve.

As we mentioned before in a previous article, checking up internally is the most rewarding thing we can ever do. Not just for ourselves, but for every single person sharing our Universe with us.

It reminds us that we are all connected, that we all share the same Being. Through this, we can be a mirror for everyone around us. Whenever someone looks at us, we reflect the love and peace which is already within them. We remind them of who they truly are. Especially when someone is disturbed and unhappy, this is when we need to be reminded the most, of who and what we truly are.

The greatest thing we can do, is we can check up for ourselves, and experience the peace and fulfilment which is our sacred birthright. 

We are like the leaves of the flower, appearing as individual leaves, but all belonging to the same Flower.   

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