Chapter 6: ”Seek and you will find”

"Seek and you will find"

- The true identifier

I come back from hiking on the Pyrenees, and when I get home, I realize that I have lost the house key. I look for it in my pockets, my backpack, the car, the hiding places in the garden – in every possible and impossible place, but the key is nowhere to be found. Before leaving I closed the doors and windows carefully, and now I have no other choice but to break into the house. Friendly neighbours lend me tools which help me break one of the window frames. I manage to get into the house and keep looking, but the disappearance of the key remains a mystery.

Looking for the lost

When we lose something, we get worried and become frantic seekers searching for the missing object. But even if what was lost is found, the mind is never completely satisfied. Something always seems to be missing. However, it is not the lost object itself which causes concern! We lose ourselves when we become engaged in the search and, as a consequence, feel like a separate entity located in and limited to the physical body. As a separate entity one always feels alone and, as such, life is a process of easing the pain. The belief, and in particular, the feeling of separation manifests usually in the rejection of the Now, and in the longing for something else to replace the Now. However, by wanting something other than what is presently happening, we keep holding on to the identity as a separate self. It's like a circle which has neither a beginning nor an end.

Likewise, by contemplating the essence of identification, I feel like I'm going around in circles. Who or what is the one who identifies? Intellectually, I understand the metaphor of the dreamer and the dream. However, I can't figure out why or how the character in the dream gets identified with its role. It is also clear to me that the body is an instrument for perception, so it is neither the perceiver nor the knowing element in perceiving. Thus, I am not my body but rather the one who is using it, and hence, there is no way for the person to be the identifier.

The issue of identifying keeps on bothering me. By excluding other possibilities, the only remaining option seems to be that it is consciousness which is the identifier. However, due to the identification with something that is impermanent and limited, the finiteness of that object would displace a little bit of consciousness's infinity. And then, consciousness would cease being infinite and unchanging. But by any means this is not possible.

Peace in here and now

I'm well acquainted with the understanding, that presence doesn't have any form or limits, and hence, I cannot be experienced as an object. This means that in order to know what I perceive as an apparent 'object' I loose contact with my essential nature, as consciousness, and take on a whole new identity as a body/mind. As a result of this process, an apparent separate self is born and I seem to be limited and located in the body. Therefore, Tuulikki emerges as an identity, through which consciousness experiences itself as Tuulikki and the world of Tuulikki.

As a result of taking on this 'identity', or true nature is masked. Though the mask is but a veil, veiling comes at a cost: we descend into the slumber of ignorance, where the character as this identity begins to live its own life. The gateway to paradise seems to close for eternity.Our task is to return home and to see, that the separation has never actually taken place. It is illusory, so to speak.

Apart from experience, I, consciousness, never lose myself. I always rest in myself, am aware of myself and know myself only by myself. Being aware is continuous and always present. It's the wordless and formless knowing which is the ever present, the knowing in all experience. The Course in Miracles puts this beautifully into these words:

"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God".

Can peace be lost?

However, In the middle of mental turbulence, peace seems to be lost. It feels like being magnetized by thoughts, images, and beliefs. In the moment of attachment, peace is veiled by a fluctuation of thoughts and actions rising by them. From the point of the persona, peace is a state of mind that can be achieved by processing or changing the mind in one way or another. Right now, questions about identification come and go in my mind. Seemingly, peace is obscured by the mind, but underneath, I nevertheless sense the realm of peace.

Is there an I inside the body?

Peace and innocence are inevitable in a newborn baby. She doesn't know anything about the body, thoughts, or the world. Everything is pure sensing without a subject or an object, only sensing exists. But when the idea of a separate self is implanted in the mind, it gives rise to duality where experience is divided into the experiencer and the experienced. Consequently, we believe that we as a separate self are the subject of our experience and everyone else is the object. Our Self seems to reside somewhere in the body, and we believe our body to be an independent entity amongst innumerable other entities. Accordingly, it is believed that this separate entity is the doer of actions, the thinker of thoughts and the feeler of feelings. But just as a stone can be crushed, so can beliefs be shattered: we can question and investigate our thoughts!

True identifier

Months later, on a beautiful spring day I am inspired to do a thorough cleaning in my house. The merciless sunlight reveals the dust that has been accumulating in the corners and on the furniture. So, I find myself carrying out carpets and pieces of furniture. I spend several hours cleaning and at the end, I feel relaxed. The physical tiredness gives me a much needed break from thinking. I slowly sink into the nothingness beyond the mind, and before long, I rest in Being. I enjoy the timelessness, but after a while I gradually let my attention focus back onto the flow of thoughts. They arise and disappear like ripples on the surface of the ocean. Thoughts feel very real to me, and instinctively, I know that there is something in them that is unchanging and permanent. All at once I understand that thoughts don't have any existence of their own, apart from their source which is consciousness. So, it is consciousness which gives rise to the feeling of continuity of thoughts.

…I am something

I continue to observe. Thoughts continue to come and go, but I rest in Being. I do not need to exclude anything, I just let everything be as it is. And all of sudden, it feels as if an intense light is breathing my body, and in the same breath I understand, that by giving a name for the nameless, something interesting takes place: The knowing of I am turns into an experience I am something and identifying with it. Instead of one reality there suddenly seems to be a world of separate individuals who possess a personal consciousness.

The light shining on objects

I'm enjoying the cleanliness and freshness of my newly cleaned home. Eventually, I start arranging the living room furniture, when suddenly, I see a chink on the floor. My jaw drops open, I stare at the lost key without understanding anything. But all of a sudden it is clear to me, that it is thought alone which imagines that awareness shares the destiny and the limits of the body. It dawns on me that identifying is a quality of thinking and it is thought alone which superimposes different kinds of qualities on the Self. Hence, the true identifier is neither consciousness, nor the separate self but a THOUGHT! It is solely thought that does the identification and veils our Being with the limitations of the body and the mind and calls it I.

My world is turned upside down! I take my mask off and see that she who seeks doesn't find. But she who doesn't seek will be found and will see her own light shining on all objects.