The separate self is nothing more than thought. It’s no more real than that. Realizing that a thought you used to believe in is not true and, in fact, never was, there’s a profound sense of liberation in remembering directly who you really are.
Ethereal by Marc AdamusI’m losing my mind. The memory’s going too. 
It’s a frightening experience, at least the mind perceives it to be. Yet when I look at what’s happening, nothing of value is being lost.
It’s strangely being realized to be a tremendous blessing even though on the surface it may seem like I’m getting Alzheimer’s or something.
The memory I have is getting very difficult to access. It’s not really needed anymore and is falling away. What remains is conscious awareness resting in the present moment. When something from the “past” is necessary, it will be known. If it doesn’t arise, it’s not necessary. It seems memory is being replaced with simple knowingness.
People often ask me, “How are you?” the way many of us do as a common greeting, but I have no answer to that question anymore. No label adequately describes any experience. Does the word “happy” describe the experience itself? Of course not. No label ever does and so it’s not a valid answer. I just am. That’s all I can say.
People ask me how my day was, and I literally have no idea. Trying to access the memory is like accessing a blank void. If I look at my calendar, I may remember bits and pieces of what I did, but the past doesn’t seem very relevant anymore.
Who cares? I mean that literally. Who? There is no real self. It’s just thought entertaining thought.
No sense of self can be found. Ariel, nothingness, everythingness, silence, God, spiritual being, creator of your reality… whatever. These are all labels. They’re nonsense. They’re just thoughts. They’re not the Truth of my being. No label or description, no matter how wondrous, can be the Truth of my being.
I have no idea what I am, mentally anyways. I can’t describe what I am or explain it. It’s literally impossible. I can only BE what I am.
I don’t know who I am. I just am what I am, whatever that is.
There is conscious awareness resting in the moment. Pure beingness. No flashy “spiritual experiences” to cling to and create a sense of self around.
The mind goes quiet in this process as all answers to its incessant yet fruitless questions are rendered null and void, even though the mind is still frantically searching for something to grasp onto. The mind can’t wrap itself around what I Am. No answer will ever be it.
Only Silence and Presence remains as the eternal infinite nothingness of All. Existence itself. Impersonal existence.
Who Am I? I have no idea. There is no answer to that question.
In a recent comment here on this site, Anthony brought up an excellent point. It is so important that it’s worth dedicating a post to. Let’s see what Anthony has to say:
Hi Ariel,
The biggest difficulty that I have had so far has been trying to reconcile a fully conscious lifestyle with the brain’s automatic conditioned responses. It seems like our brains have evolved to compel us to behave in an evolutionarily advantageous way. For example, if I hold my breath for as long as I can, eventually my desire for air will increase to the point that it overwhelms everything else.
How does the idea of enlightenment deal with these automatic responses? No matter how spiritually enlightened we are, we are still human. I think that the root of my difficulties is coming from the fact that I am hoping to see true reality, yet I also believe that our minds are hardwired to experience reality in certain ways that are beneficial to our survival.
Thanks,
B.
Hey B,
Great question.
You’re absolutely right. No matter how enlightened “you” are, “you” are still just as human.
All awakening boils down to is realizing your true nature. Sure, Jesus still ate food. The Buddha’s heart still beat. Ramana Maharshi still talked with people. Nisargadatta Maharaj still breathed naturally. Adyashanti still has the capacity to think. David Hawkins still has the ability to hold an intention in mind and see it come into manifestation.
You see, it’s not about overriding your body’s natural evolutionary patterns, but recognizing that they are not you. It’s not about trying to force the mind to go quiet, but recognizing the mind is not you. It’s not about perceiving an alternate reality beyond the mind, but recognizing that the mind’s perception of what is is not actually reality. What is is just what is, not what you think it is.
It is possible to look, to simply look at something without mentally creating a whole story about what’s being witnessed. Witness what is without engaging the mind.
Upon awakening it is still possible to discern the difference between a snake and a bed, for example. One is safe for the body to lie down on. The other is not. 
It’s not like that capacity is lost.
What changes is the idea that “external” objects are in any way separate from that which I am. We are all recognized to be an expression of Divinity.
The mind is not capable of truly coming to this realization. It can only adopt this, or something else, as a belief system.
You’re right that the mind is designed to ensure our own physical survival, for the most part. However, the mind can only discern appearance. Is this food healthy or not? Does this situation look dangerous or not? It uses logic, reasoning, and past experiences as its reference, but very often what’s happening now is very different from what happened in the past. The mind is only designed to perceive what happened. It’s not designed to understand what will happen. This is an inherent limitation of the mind. Read More …
Enlightenment is the direct experience of Reality itself, without going through the mind to overlay a perceptual filter through associating the experience with thought.
The mind is simply a tool. It’s a very powerful tool and a very useful tool. It plays a role in physical creation. Every car you’ve driven and every building you’ve ever walked into was first just a thought in someone’s head. Eventually the thought was identified as appropriate so it was made manifest through action.
However, a thought can never be the Truth itself.
You can think about drinking a glass of water all you want until you die, but the only thing that will do you any good is actually drinking the water.
You can hold the glass and drink the water without consciously thinking about it. The thoughts and the experience are two totally different things, completely different realities.
You can talk about a glass of water all you want, but the words are not the water. The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.
Thoughts are symbolic, conceptual ideas, pointers, but they are not the Truth itself. Thought can never be anything other than thought. Everything is exactly what it is.
Reality just is. You just are. You are. I am.
There is a BIG difference between thoughts and Reality. In fact, the two are mutually exclusive.
The thing is though that the mind has become almost like a cancer. It has taken over Reality and replaced it with its own symbolic reality that only exists within the mind itself. The mind is supporting itself with thoughts created by itself. People spend more time thinking about something than actually having the experiencing the experience itself.
This has happened to such an extent that the “I” that we are who uses the tool called the mind now goes to the tool to loop back and figure out what it is. “Who am I?”
The response is called a self-image, an image that represents who we *think* we are. Read More …
Your capacity for awareness is an innate aspect of your true Self.
A baby fetus is aware of its surroundings, even if it doesn’t have the capacity to mentally language its experience. Awareness is prior to all thought, yet people tend to believe that thoughts are who they are, as if they couldn’t exist without thought.
The ego is reborn every morning. If you’ve noticed, when you first wake up, the very first experience is simply conscious awareness. As the ego slowly returns and identifications reappear, one next starts to realize ‘where’ they are, but they don’t know what day it is. The sense of space returns, followed by the sense of time. A person’s name and identity then return as well into their conscious experience.
In that very first moment when you just wake up, notice you still exist without an ego, a sense of “me.” It is possible to exist sans ego, but we’re generally not used to functioning in such a way.
Let’s talk a little bit more about this.
A useful exercise is to pretend that you have no memory.
By setting aside memory (it’s not you anyways, it’s simply stored experiences and programming), Self-inquiry is much easier. In this moment, without a memory, who are you?
This leads to the discovery that there is no ‘who’ there, only awareness of this moment.
The Self actually has no memory whatsoever. Every moment is experienced as a magnificent and glorious awe-inspiring wonder of the grandeur of life, like the very first time you stepped up to the edge of a massive canyon or gazed upon a fiery sunset. It leaves one utterly speechless. It’s like a newborn child who looks around the world in amazement. This is the perspective of the Self. Read More …
Many people who are seeking Truth, be they scientists, spiritual seekers, or religious practitioners, are looking to find how they fit into the world and what their purpose is.
At the core of this search one finds the question “Who Am I?”
Once you figure out who you are, then you know how you fit into the puzzle of life and what your role in it is. So… who are you?
Can you ever actually see yourself?
Can you look outside of yourself to see yourself?
Let’s allow Adyashanti to take us on an adventure. Let’s see if it’s possible to actually “look within” as so many masters have told us to do. Read More …
It is helpful, Anthony, if you truly want to awaken, to let go of any identification with the mind.
photo by SantiMB
You have probably discovered that trying to replace negative mental noise with positive mental noise is still just noise. Instead of enjoying life as it is in this moment, a delicious meal, a deep massage, or whatever else, the mind is thinking about how great it is, how wonderful life is, how appreciative it is, all the wonderful things it’s going to manifest, and so on. Just be quiet and enjoy the moment!
As you said, it is possible to tell the mind to be quiet for a moment and experience that. The thing is, however, and this is very subtle: you are not the one telling your brain what to do! You are not in control of the brain. It is thought directing thought, but thought is not you!
There’s this trick where the mind can tell itself to be quiet for a moment, and it will. Then it gives “you” credit for this action. By giving you credit, it gives you the impression that you are in control of the mind and if you engage in this game more and more, you can (theoretically, with enough practice) get to the point where you can overcome the mind. You can dominate and win, given enough practice.
However, any time you try to go to battle with the mind, you lose. It’s a game you can not win.
Why? Because there is no “you” to win the game! The “you” who thinks it’s in control of the mind is still only a thought in the first place!
There’s a “you” who doesn’t exist competing against a mind who also is not you. There is no “you” involved in the game at all!
So if you’re not even playing the game, how on earth do you ever expect to win?