I AM THAT

To answer this question we must travel inwards, using the mind to observe its own essential quality. But the mind can only go so far. To truly find the answer the mind must bring itself to its own end. This is the essence of meditation.

Meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life; to reach the source of life and consciousness. Interest in your stream of consciousness takes you to awareness (our ever-present Being), to the centre of consciousness. Beyond this is a state of utter stillness and silence. It is unreachable by words, or mind. Meditation therefore is a sattvic activity (to eliminate tamas, inertia, and rajas, restlessness).

One of the key issues is that we try to do meditation, but meditation is not something we do with the mind. Rather, meditation is a relaxing of the mind into the ground of Being. Awareness isn’t found by or in the mind. Awareness (is) the mind, at rest. While the mind (is) awareness, in motion (vibration). The mind is simply the activity of awareness in its limited form. Just as consciousness can’t be found in matter. Matter is the manifestation of consciousness as viewed through the finite mind (ie, such as the body which is just an accumulation of sensations we experience in the vibrating field of mind). This means the ego is a process, not an entity. The ego, per se, is not a problem, just as the body is not, only the belief that they are separate entities is.

A person is just ego-driven habits, built on memory (which is partial, unreliable and soon enough fades), promoted by the desire to be happy. This is why we often hear it said that the ego, the mind, the body, and everything else is an illusion and a state of suffering. Not an illusion in the sense that they are not there, but that they are not the concrete and separate things we think them to be. And suffering because our finite minds can never take us to infinite happiness (the gravitational pull towards our true nature).

Here our noble friendship is the supreme remedy for all ills. Your own Self is your best friend. The greatest Guru is your Inner Self. For truly they are the supreme teacher. What they teach is that first we must have trust, for without trust there is no peace. But merely to trust is not enough. You must also desire. If we desire the good of all the universe will work with us. The stronger the desire, the easier comes the help. But if all you want is your own pleasure, you must earn it the hard way.

The problem here is that we want to know and yet fear this Truth at the same time. But our behaviour must reflect our growing understanding through tenacity and honesty (which Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj calls eagerness and Adyashanti calls sincerity). In practice it is very simple. You must be eager to see, to know yourself. But we shouldn’t fight our obstacles, rather just be interested (curious) about them, enquire into them, but let whatever happens happen, don’t get caught up in them. The cleansing process, self-purification, is clarification of the mind through this curious enquiry laid bare.

It is through this process that we come to a recognition that there is no distinction between consciousness and its objects (ie, everything that is manifested, matter, us). (I) is the name we give to ourselves. All experiences change continually, all is in flux. There is no static (me). But the (I) stays the same. It is our unchanging core, infinite consciousness.

This is the non-dual perspective where nothing, no object, truly exists separately. There is only (I) and (I) am everything (or nothing). Nothing because nothing stands out (ie, exists separately). There is only oneness. The simple statement I AM THAT. Where our natural Being, core / essence is impersonal, yet intimate and infinite.

Bringing it all together

This understanding and perspective have significant implications for how we live our lives, how we treat ourselves, other people, animals, the environment. And hence, from a tantric perspective, the two questions are, (1) how do we bring THAT to THIS? (2) what would love say and do? For, fear is the misuse of the mind, while love is the right use of mind; love is a state of being that comes from abiding in I AM.

For the tantric practitioner who understands this process they tap into their desires. But rather than fall into the repetitive cycle of enactment and attachment, the tantric practitioner goes inwards (for no object or objective experience can give us the peace and happiness we desire). Using the immediate desire to tap into their deeper desire for awakening, the tantric practitioner connects to their source, their core, their essence (ie, that which can’t be separated from them). I AM. Infinite love and happiness.

This is not love as we commonly perceive it, as an emotion or a relationship, but rather this is the collapse of all relationships, the end of all separateness, the end of us as individual selves. This is a return to our original impersonal, unlimited, intimate and infinite, natural Being. 

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Email me direct if you are interested in mindful, embodied, trauma-informed, or spiritually-informed coaching, or if you would like to join my new Pink Tantra Towards Awakening group for chat rooms, video channels and in-person workshops around tantra and intimacy practices robert.pinktantra@gmail.com

See my personal development / personality profiling book DISCover the Power of You published through John Hunt Publishing Ltd, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-78535-591-2

And for a bit of light reading, see my first historical fictional novel Fermented Spirits published through Austin Macauley Publishers, 2022. ISBN-13: ‎978-1398437159