I used to think there was one of me, but no: there are two.
There’s me, little me, personal me, little mind/ ego me, and then there’s me, the me that’s not possible to define with words or labels, or letters after my name, or marital status, or familial history but I know to be true, far truer than the shifting ego-powered part of me.
When I was travelling in my late teens and early twenties I experienced big, exciting, awe-inspiring feelings, a sense of connectedness to everything, a sense of freedom and exhilaration and joy I’d never felt in ‘normal’ life.
I put those feelings and those times down to the fact I was away, I didn’t have the concerns and worries of ‘normal’ life on my shoulders: I *was* free to an extent, so of course I *felt* free.
I presumed, therefore, that when similar (though perhaps more muted) feelings occurred in everyday life, here and there, that it was because in those moments I’d managed to shake the cares and worries of my everyday life and be ‘free’ again, even if just for a brief moment.
But what I see now is that there isn't a free me and a not free me - that's a false separation: the feelings of freedom and joy and connectedness I enjoyed when travelling are available to all of us, all of the time, alongside and beneath ego-created cares and worries.
*That* part of me is like the sun in the sky. Even when it looks like a cloudy day, the sun is still there, behind the clouds. It is constant, it never goes anywhere, regardless of what’s playing out on the stage of the sky in front of it.
So what I see now is that there are two 'me's.
There's my ego, personal mind/ little mind me, and there’s a Me behind and beyond. A me that is not ''me and *all* me; which is impersonal, which is universal; which is me and not me, because it is everything and all of us.
Our egos are not ‘us’; they are part of us - a wonderful, glorious, many-hued part of us which allows us to experience life in all it's multicoloured glory - but they are not what’s powering the show.
What’s powering the show is that other ‘me’, or you...
or us.
There’s me, little me, personal me, little mind/ ego me, and then there’s me, the me that’s not possible to define with words or labels, or letters after my name, or marital status, or familial history but I know to be true, far truer than the shifting ego-powered part of me.
When I was travelling in my late teens and early twenties I experienced big, exciting, awe-inspiring feelings, a sense of connectedness to everything, a sense of freedom and exhilaration and joy I’d never felt in ‘normal’ life.
I put those feelings and those times down to the fact I was away, I didn’t have the concerns and worries of ‘normal’ life on my shoulders: I *was* free to an extent, so of course I *felt* free.
I presumed, therefore, that when similar (though perhaps more muted) feelings occurred in everyday life, here and there, that it was because in those moments I’d managed to shake the cares and worries of my everyday life and be ‘free’ again, even if just for a brief moment.
But what I see now is that there isn't a free me and a not free me - that's a false separation: the feelings of freedom and joy and connectedness I enjoyed when travelling are available to all of us, all of the time, alongside and beneath ego-created cares and worries.
*That* part of me is like the sun in the sky. Even when it looks like a cloudy day, the sun is still there, behind the clouds. It is constant, it never goes anywhere, regardless of what’s playing out on the stage of the sky in front of it.
So what I see now is that there are two 'me's.
There's my ego, personal mind/ little mind me, and there’s a Me behind and beyond. A me that is not ''me and *all* me; which is impersonal, which is universal; which is me and not me, because it is everything and all of us.
Our egos are not ‘us’; they are part of us - a wonderful, glorious, many-hued part of us which allows us to experience life in all it's multicoloured glory - but they are not what’s powering the show.
What’s powering the show is that other ‘me’, or you...
or us.
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