So just who are you anyway?

As a note, I think I am going to stop anticipating what I will write about at the end of each post. I'm finding it a bit restrictive...and I don't like restrictions (especially self-imposed!)

So what is our true nature? In fact, this is a question that can't be answered with words. Words can only point towards the answer to that question.

Let's remember who we are not first; we are not our thoughts, we are not our feelings, we are not our body, we are not our house, car, children, partner, job, name, nationality, race, religion or any other label we could possibly apply. All of these things, if we identify with them, are food for the ego- that's all.

So, if we are nothing that we can see, hear, feel, touch, taste, think of feel...what on earth is left?

The answer to that question is the answer to our question. That which is left when you take everything away is what we truly are. We are no-thing...not nothing...but no-thing.

It is no-thing that created the universe and sustains the universe. It is no-thing that is beneath all of life and is life itself. It can't be named or labeled because it is no-thing.

This no-thing is what we truly are...what every thing truly is. If everything ceased to exist, it would not cease to exist, because it simply returned to no-thingness.

Is the paradox giving you a headache yet? Yeah, me too:)

There is a place deep within us where we are connected to our true nature. It is impossible for us to not be connected to it....it is us, we are it.

The ego created this idea of separation, which is ultimately the cause of all fear, suffering and misery in the world. As the ego emerged, and as we came to believe the ego is who we are, we believed that all the things in the world are searate from each other.

There is "me" and there is "you" and "they". There is a "tree", a "bird", a "river". All of a sudden there was no connection between anything anymore. With this belief came great fear. If there is what I identify as me (my body and my thoughts and feelings), and I am not connected to anything else, everything else becomes a threat to "me". How can it be otherwise? We lost our sense of "knowing" that we are simply a part of the whole. Everything is the same as us...is us.

As a result of the fear, we developed a need to possess. We believed that by possessing, we were gathering security to us. The idea of ownership emerged. The idea that something can belong to you can only come when you think that something is separate from you. If you and it are one, how can it belong to you? It is you!

From the need to possess came desire. We began to desire things we believed would bring us what we craved (security, happiness, peace, etc). The ego makes us believe we want these things because it doesn't know we already are these things! It thinks we are lacking these things and that they can only be gotten from things "out there". So we desire more and more things due to the mistaken belief that they will bring us what we truly want- wholeness.

The desire then creates a great deal of suffering. This is the fundamental teaching of Buddhism. In our desire lies the root of all our suffering. If we are desiring things we believe are separate from us, there is always the fear that we will not be able to aquire those things; or when we have aqcuired them, we are afraid of losing them. The feeling of desire itself is suffering. You can only desire what you believe you don't already have- what you feel is lacking.

When we can "know" (and by this I don't mean an intellectual or conceptual understanding, I mean the deeper knowing that is who we truly are) who we truly are, we see that all the things our ego believes we are lacking and searches for ourside ourselves, is not only within us, but is who we truly are. We are whole- as we are right now- one with everything that is and with no-thing.

It is only to become aware of it.