We are innately worthy, innately divine, and need do nothing to substantiate this.  We are One enjoying our infinite diversity. Yet so often, through the journey of individuation and the veils of illusion that we can get lost in, to validate our place in the world and give ourselves a sense of identity, meaning, worthiness and security, we define ourselves in relationship to our world: "I am here and not there. I am fat and you are thin. I am fast and you are slow. I am bad and you are good. You won and I lost. You are this way and I am that way. I used to be this way and now I am that way. I believe this and you believe that."

We define ourselves through our conditions: "I am hot, I am cold. I am tired. I am old. I am young. I am hungry, I am horny. I am happy. I am sad. I am angry. I am depressed. I am sick. I am well. I am in love. I am lonely."

We define ourselves in opposition to the world or in identification with it: "You are this way and I am not like you. The world is this way but I am that way." 

Then, to make it all even more meaningful, we create reasons to feel these ways. And the more reasons we have, the more that we think it gives us validity or justifies our existence. And if we do not have reasons, we judge ourselves as shallow or crazy.

When we avoid the unknown, the way that we think we will know where we are, is in relation to something else. And our "something else" is often not seen for what it is but through a streaming narrative about it built on preconceptions and the agenda to give ourselves a name, place and meaning in our world. What I am pointing to is distinct from a celebration and enjoyment of individuality and diversity.  I am pointing to the momentum of the comparative mind and the way we shape our identity through our belief in our confabulations.

When we are not comfortable with the unknown, we tend to defend ourselves against it; against NOW; against what is and the unknown.  We do this by layering on top of it meaning and stories and beliefs which place us in a context to where there is an appearance of knowing and an appearance of identity. When we surrender to the now without fixating in identity through our relationship to something else or our own conditions, we may see, if look to find who we are, that there is no one there. If we do not see ourselves in relationship to something else we fear we may cease to exist, and in fact we (or the illusion) may cease to exist as a separated self-sense. And if there is no one there, there is no sense of a someone who can do something. And who are we and what value do we have if we do not do anything?  Paradoxically, when we as awareness, without a fixated identity, surrender to the Now through a Silence, without our preconceptions/stories/beliefs layered on top of the now, we can really see where we are, what arises and what to do much more intimately. This is awareness.

Approaching life with all of our preconceptions and self-referencing in relation to the world around us is like looking through glasses which are colored with designs and polka dots on them rather than through clear ones. 

When we are insecure with the unknown and the present moment, we tend to do everything we can to avoid it. When we think those things external or separate from ourselves will create sustainable meaning and security for us or when we have expectations for specific outcomes, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Our only true insurance is through a surrender to the present and it Silence. The only kind of meaning that is sustainable and not subject to the conditions of the moment is meaning that is prior to all conditions.... and that is not a mental kind of meaning - it is the ineffable suchness of all of this and none of this, found not through thought and preconceptions, but through Silence.

We perpetuate the myths of our fears when we feel that we need to substantiate or validate ourselves with our confabulated meaning - as if we were not innately valid or worthy. We create stories and meaning where we are actually clueless.  We define ourselves and all of life in relationship to our representations and interpretations of something else. It is habitually part and parcel of this relative/space/time/measuring world. If we had nothing to measure or reference ourselves in relation to, where would we be? Who would we be? I am not pathologizing this - it has created its own field for Self-experience and exploration. But I also see that doing it can obscure an experience of freedom where Truth and creativity flow unimpeded and stories Divinely intelligent unfold (supernovas, galaxies) without our adding stories to them that direct life in ways that mind and fear cannot with all of its gumption ever hope to. When we are awake to this and what is prior to our conditions within the conditions of duality, we can live without division; we can live eternity in time.  

Ellen Davis - ©2001

Revised ©2008