Among living beings, as far as we know, we human persons alone are aware of having a 'self'.
What is it that makes you the individual person you are? What is it in you that can think and speak, that wants to love and be loved, that makes you yourself? The most wonderful mystery of your existence is that undeniable, yet inexplicable fact of your "self". We know that psychology can enlighten us a lot on how our self awareness shrivels or grows. It cannot explain the origin and reality of your own particular, individual self.
Mystics of all ages have pointed out that the deepest origin for our individual self must lie in God, the Ultimate Reality.
It is not difficult to see that the whole world makes no sense without an overall Principle that binds it all together. That Principle, underlying everything, is God. Probably you have found traces of this Principle in the world around you. You see signs of God's presence in the wonders of nature, in the mystery of the universe, in evidence of purpose or power. It may never have struck you that the closest sign of God's presence could lie in yourself.
For what is more puzzling than that you are a free, conscious end individual person?
You know you are not God. But you also know that there are depths in you that are much greater than you are. Your desire to live, your desire to be yourself, your desire to know, your desire to love and be loved - it is like a flame fed from within out of an unknown but very powerful Source.
That Source, that deepest Origin of yourself, you must realise, is God.
The Hindu spiritual masters who wrote the Upanishads, approached ultimate reality through the inner path. By entering their own atman -a Sanskrit word that means both "breath" and "self", they sought to find the Atman, the SELF, of the universe.
There is no need to seek so far from us, they tell us. Look at yourself. Basically everything that exists must be one. There is an infinite scale of higher and lower beings, but whatever exists must somehow partake in that same quality of being. In yourself, therefore, you carry a portion, a trace, of that Ultimate Reality that underlies all things that are! There is a principle of life in you, a trace of divinity, which puts you in direct touch with Ultimate Reality itself.
And think about this: If you can see, if you can hear, if you can think, Ultimate Reality must be able to see, hear and think. Ultimate Reality sees, hears and thinks in and through you.
"It is not the appearance of things you should seek to understand,
try to know the Seer.
It is not sound you should seek to understand,
try to know the Hearer.
It is not speech that you should seek to understand;
try to know the Speaker.
It is not the mind you should try to understand;
try to know the Thinker.
Just as the rim of a chariot wheel is fixed onto the spokes
and the spokes are fixed onto the hub,
so the degrees of existence are fixed onto the degrees of consciousness,
and the degrees of consciousness are fixed onto life.
This life is the conscious Self, blissful, ageless, immortal.
Kena Upanishad 11 ,1-3
Sometimes people ask: "How can we be sure of this deepest Self in us, this presence of God?"
The answer is: Because we meet God in ourselves. We can have a direct perception of God in our mind, an immediate grasp, a living experience by which we are sure of God because we feel his touch.
Ibn 'Ata'illah, a thirteenth-century Sufi, recorded this prayer in his Kitab-al-Hikam:
"My God, when did you become so absent
that people expect proof by which you give evidence of your presence?
When did you become so distant
that people think it is created things that lead us to you?"
For this spiritual master, God was more "real" than his creatures. It was God who proved them, not they God.
There is a kind of knowledge, the Sufi master tells us, that transcends academic learning. It cannot be described in books. It grows by perception of a sort that defies rational concepts. It is a living knowledge. made up of lived experiences and pursuing vital concerns. Through it, he says, God can be known clearly and directly.
Also Christian mystics have recognised that we meet God in our own deepest Self. Notable among them is Jan van Ruysbroeck who lived in Flanders six centuries ago (1294 - 1381). "God is more interior to us", he said, "than we are to ourselves. His acting in us is nearer and more central than our own actions. God works in us from inside outwards. Created beings work on us from the outside".
Why is each one of us an individual?
"Because God has made us after his own image", Ruysbroeck said. He understood this reference to the creation story in a unique way. The reason for our having a "self" is that each one of us is "an expression, an imprint of the eternal Self of God".
"Our essential and highest individuality lies in God.
All creatures exist and live and are preserved by being united to God.
The moment they were to be separated from God,
they would return to nothingness.
Our link to God is the self we possess,
a self that reaches beyond ourselves.
God's Self is the origin and mainstay of our existence and our life."
When you have withdrawn in silence in your favourite place for meditation, first create peace and stillness in yourself. Then you might want to do some exercises that sharpen your awareness. These exercises could be spread over a number of sessions on consecutive days.
Text from: JOHN WIJNGAARDS, The Breath that is in Me, London 1984.
