Ground of Being

Regardless of how you interpret the source of the continual conversations going on inside your mind, the essential element to recognize is that even if you don't know for sure where your thoughts are coming from, what you do know is that they are not who you are. Whether they are expressions of your true Being or an external God or some chemical reactions caused by too many potato chips and Dr. Peppers, they are only expressions of something and not the source itself. They are not you. Even if you believe your thoughts are sometimes from God, I doubt you would believe that those thoughts are God. The words coming from my mouth are not me, only an expression of something. The words in my head are no different.

What makes you who you really are is not your thoughts. It's not even your actions or words or feelings or past or DNA. Who you are goes much deeper than that. Yes, the thoughts we focus on greatly affect our lives and the lives of those around us but those thoughts, in and of themselves, are not us. You are not really what you eat and you are certainly not what you think.

So who are we? If who we are, in the deepest sense, has any connection to the physical or mental parts of our being then we're sort of like dust in the wind. What I mean is that if those things are connected to our ultimate identity then any time there is a change, who we are dies and someone new is born. On one level that's true, that the manifest parts of our being are in a continual dance of death and rebirth, a constant state of flux. But on a deeper level our being is timeless and unchanging. Our awareness of that solid ground under the turbulent waters may change but the ground is always still there.

The amazing thing one discovers when examining this more closely is that the ground of my own being is the Ground of All Being. It's not that we're all the same and our separateness and individuality is an illusion, it's that our separateness and individuality are only one aspect of our existence and it's only an illusion in thinking that one aspect is the only one. We are also unified. It's just that we are connected on a deeper level, it's that on the deepest level we are the SAME! That's amazing to me! That 'part' of me that is timeless and unchanging is actually all-encompassing and is a 'part' of every other facet of existence, to the largest star cluster to the smallest sub-atomic particle and everything in between.

Cool, eh?

"But wait a minute," you say, "what makes us special as humans?" What makes us special or unique is our ability to become conscious of this reality, to become aware of our timeless and unchanging essence and allow it to express itself more fully through our limited and finite humanity. Not that the rest of the universe is less valuable but we're the first bit of creation that has been able to see and understand our true nature and begin to consciously participate in this process of development. The greater our awareness of our identity the less we need to act out of habitual patterns and negative reactions and the more we are able to act creatively in expressing love and compassion to the rest of the world around us. Why? Because that is what our Being wants.

Again, call it whatever you like. Call it God, call it your Authentic or True Self, call it Yahweh or Allah or Shiva, call it Being or Spirit or Consciousness, it doesn't really matter. In Christianity, my faith tradition, even though few would say that we are one with God, the entire religion is built around the belief in one person who did express that unity completely. Not only that, it seems that the thrust of the Christian message involves being joined with Christ, in his life, death, and resurrection.

So even if the idea of your essence being the essence of God seems way too far out there, maybe you can be okay with the idea that the focus of the spiritual journey is not simply to be on listening to God but becoming unified with God or having your spirit united with God's Spirit. However you need to look at it for it to make sense, the point remains the same: the ultimate goal isn't to hear and discern God's voice more clearly, which maintains separation, but to eventually transcend beyond listening to words and thoughts to a place of 'listening to silence', which is really another way of saying 'being'.

Who you are is deeper than your self-image and all of your preconceived ideas of who you are and it's only when you recognize this and begin to make the effort to seek out your 'silent center' that you begin to discover more and more of who you really are and who you are working - perhaps unconsciously - at becoming. And it is only when you stop trying to follow the legion of competing voices and start following your God-connection that you will experience true freedom. As long as you believe you have to choose a voice to follow you are not free to simply be your Self.

Take a few minutes to just sit and listen to your thoughts and feelings without trying to discern which ones are good or bad, to simply be aware of them, to be aware that you are not them. Listen to the silence that is your very center. There's no fear or anger there, only peace.

"When it is free, the mind settles down. It gives up its restlessness and becomes a channel for peace...The mind is 'wild' because we try to control it. At a deeper level lies complete orderliness. Here, thoughts and impulses flow in harmony with what is right and best for each person...in a state of simple awareness, the most evolutionary choices seem to come spontaneously. While the ego agonizes over every detail of a situation, a deeper part of your awareness knows what to do already, and its choices emerge with amazing finesse and perfect timing." ~ Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets