Conscious Remembrance

Ramana Marshi, a great teacher in the yoga tradition, said that to attain inner freedom one must continually ask the question, “Who am I?”

Gangaji, in her book, The Diamond in Your Pocket – Discovering Your True Radiance, says, “The most important question you will ever ask yourself is, “Who am I?”  You may listen to an excerpt from the book by clicking the following link: https://tinyurl.com/kdw6h9u.

Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now and A New Earth shares his story of awakening when one day he heard himself say, “I can no longer live with myself.”  As he heard himself speak those words, he wondered, “Who is the ‘I’ and who is the ‘self’ that ‘I’ can no longer live with?”  Thus began his journey to discovering his truth and claiming his freedom.

Who are you, really?  We often define ourselves by our bodies, whether we are male or female; tall or short; young or old. We also describe ourselves according to our emotional state at any given moment; i.e., “I am angry.”   Perhaps most commonly we label ourselves according to the roles we play in life, as in, “I am a mother,” or “I am an accountant.”  In keeping with our social norms, when asked, “Who are you?” we most often respond by giving our name, occupation, or by sharing some aspect of our life experience to which the questioner can readily relate. 

The ‘self’ to which Tolle referred is comprised of all of those labels; however, none of them can define who we truly are. Our true Self is changeless and eternal. It can best be understood as ‘awareness,’ that which is aware of the body, emotional state, and the roles we play at any point in time. Gangaji says, “You are awareness and awareness is consciousness.” The consciousness that was aware of the body, the mind and the emotions at age ten is the same consciousness that is aware of the body, the mind, and the emotions today. While all of those external conditions change, consciousness remains constant.

Tolle expounds on this truth in the forward to Gangaji’s book. He says,

“Know the truth and the truth shall set you free. These words spoken by Jesus refer not to some conceptual truth, but to the truth of who you are beyond name and form. They refer not to something that you need to know about yourself, but a deeper, yet extraordinarily simple knowing, in which the knower and the known merge into one. I am not what happens, but the space in which it happens. This knowing, this living truth, frees you from identification with form, from time, as well as from a false, mind-made sense of self. What is that space in which everything happens? Consciousness prior to form.”

In his book, Immortal Diamond: The Search for our True Self, Fr. Richard Rohr, in referring to the True Self says,

“It is a reverence humming within you that must be honored. Call it soul, the unconscious, deep consciousness, or the indwelling Holy Spirit. Call it nothing. It does not need the right name or right religion to show itself. It does not need to be understood. It is usually wordless. It just is, and shows itself best when we are silent, or in love, or both. It is God-in-All-Things yet not circumscribed by any one thing. Once in a while, this True Self becomes radiant and highly visible in one lovely place or person. Superbly so, and for all to see, in the body of the Risen Christ.”

In Unity, we speak of the ‘Christ’ as the Divine Idea for humanity in God-Mind. From that understanding, the Christ, as the essence of each of us, is the impulse of God-Mind (Divine Intelligence, Power, Order, Beauty, etc.) within us to know ourselves in Unity with God. The Christ is the Divine Urge, inherent within each of us, for the continued evolution of consciousness. The Christ, the True Self, as the evolutionary impulse within us, is constantly drawing us along the evolutionary spiral toward conscious union in God-Mind.

As we awaken to the indwelling Christ and continue to expand our awareness of the Christ as our True Self, we become the embodiment of the Christ Ideal in consciousness. And, we know ourselves in Oneness with God-Mind, Allness. We, too, can become the Christ in visibility as did our way shower Jesus. As Tolle said, it is “an extraordinarily simple knowing, when the knower and the known merge into one.”

It is important for us to remember that the Christ is not a “Who:” It is our Essential Nature. The Christ is not a “What:” It does not have existence as an object outside of self. The Christ does not exist in time and space; therefore it is nowhere.

Rather than continually asking, “Who am I?” I suggest we choose to live in conscious remembrance of our Divine Nature and boldly proclaim, “I Am the Christ,” and allow the mind, body and spirit to experience alignment with that truth.

Join us on Sunday for our 10:00 service as we celebrate Mother’s Day and explore further the concept of “Conscious Remembrance.”