Who is the “I”?
“The Supreme Self is luminous, formless, beyond the external and internal, unborn,
without breath or mind, pure, higher than the highest, imperishable.”
Mundaka Upanishad
Seek the source from which vision arises. Can you describe or locate the ultimate observer of your experience? Where does it reside? What shape does it have? What color? What age?
If everything you’ve ever known—your body, the world, all the people you’ve ever met, all of it—is merely an appearance in sensation, then what is sensation appearing into? Who or what is doing it?
As the sages of the East have taught for thousands of years: “Neti, Neti”—not this, not that. Whatever can be seen or described isn’t the ultimate essence, the true observer. At the very heart of your being lies a principle that exists beyond anything that can be seen, measured, or described.
You won’t find it by searching for it like a lost wallet. Instead, by letting go of every concept, image, and belief—as if peeling away the layers of an onion—you discover that what you’re seeking is unfindable. Your true center can only be revealed through its own absence.
This goes completely against our common beliefs. Yet, it’s a fact: at the center of "my" experience, or rather, in the place where I thought I’d find a center, a “me,” an “I,” I find nothing at all—literally no-thing. Only space devoid of all attributes: empty, silent, still, faceless, ageless.
Yet, that pure void at the heart of my being isn’t a dead thing. On the contrary, it is fully awake. Am I not conscious right now? Miraculously, that empty presence somehow has the power to illuminate this moment with the light of reality.
It has the power to call this present experience into being, right here, right now. Yet, it itself can’t be found—neither here nor there, neither now nor then.
It allows me to experience the depth of space and the passage of time. Yet, it itself stands prior to any dimensions, unaffected by them.
It has the capacity to give birth to the ten thousand things, the universe in all its glory, beauty, and complexity. Yet, it itself has no substance, no weight, no characteristics.
The seer, the seen, and the act of seeing all appear together within that capacity. Yet, it itself remains always one and undivided.
It is that which knows and contain everything — pure capacity for the world to bloom. Yet, it cannot itself be known or contained in any way.
Simply notice how effortlessly the whole manifestation comes into being within your gaze. The formless manifesting as all beings and forms in the universe, no-thing manifesting as everything, the divine experiencing itself through creation— and you are THAT.
IMF - L’Arche - 12th of August 2024
