You are going to read this because it is about you. You may disagree or agree, believe or disbelieve, but whatever you do, you merely confirm the secret about you. Do you know what that secret is? In knowing it fully and completely, you can find a great freedom, self-acceptance, peace, and a love inside you greater than you probably realized.

The secret is this: you are seeking yourself and generally have no idea who or what that self is!! The world revolves around you, around what you believe, think or personally feel. Yet, stop for a moment right now - isn’t everyone you meet the same way? Is it any wonder we all feel separate in our sameness? Isn’t this a great paradox, how we all believe, think and feel separate thoughts from each other and yet we all do the same thing? Yet, can we help it?

Now, does being aware about this help us in finding clarity, peace and inner fulfillment?

You bet it does! Focus on this statement right now, and as you read about it, keep open and see how a greater clarity comes to you. Let us repeat the statement...

Won’t it be something if you recognized the fact that you are always seeking yourself and don’t know who and what that self is?

Last Thursday, a few people attented satsang. The topic centered around the intelligence of life, and how what we are always wanting is ‘this moment’ in its totality. Examples were given about the gambler and the moment of winning, the racer at his greatest speed, the mountain climber reaching the peak, the moment of sexual orgasm, the free-fall just before the parachute opens, that bite into your favourite chocolate, and the moment of realizing you are in love. It is this holy instant that we crave, because it brings us to that moment of total being.

After satsang, we all sat in a circle holding hands doing our usual closed-eyes reflection of the one Being. When we opened our eyes, the woman next to me glowed with presence; her eyes shone with clarity and she uttered, “The holy moment is myself!” and it was so touching that all I could say was, while facing her, “I feel blessed by your presence here.” Then I looked around me and saw the tear-eyed group feeling the same way I did.

We had just experienced the holy instant together. Did you know, that in truth, you are that holy instant?

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU TRULY WANT?

Most people have to think about the question, “What do I really want?” before they can answer. Our best moments occur when we are having a good time. What makes a good time? Is it that bite into your favourite chocolate? Is it that fine wine you have always wanted to taste? Is it the touch of your most cherished beloved? Is it your favorite show or the laughter you had with your friend?

What do these experiences consist of? Feel out this question, “What do all the things you love experiencing have in common?” and you will recognize the feeling that they all share, the feeling of being relaxed, unself-conscious, totally present and completely out of time-consciousness. In other words, you are being fully yourself without restrictions, without a sense of confinement, free.

The key point here is, aren’t you being fully yourself at such moments? Don’t you wish that such moments never end? And here is another most important question: don’t you find yourself inwardly planning for such moments most of the time?

By answering such questions honestly, you will hit upon the recognition that you are always seeking yourself and have never known it. This doesn’t apply just to you. ‘You’ are everyone you meet.

Do you see the power of this recognition? This whole life experience is a seeking of yourself! This seeking is covert and hides under the cover of:
• The search for meaning
• The need to understand
• The fascination with the unknown or mysterious
• Religious inclination
• The need for love and relationship
• The curiosity to know what lies in the mind of another
• The essential escape from boredom, routine and rules
• The craving for adventure and thrill seeking

The list is endless, but suffice to say that it all boils down to the seeking of yourself. This topic is essential because, despite our best intentions, we like to believe we are above the seeking of ourselves. But we have to be honest, and the fact is, we cannot help it. It is all unconsciously driven despite what we think or believe.

If you say you want to make someone happy, check again your true motivation and you will find that it is because it makes you happy also. You are always ‘there’ in everything that is done or experienced. You are wherever you go. In fact, wherever you go, there you are! To you, there is nothing but you!

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM YOURSELF?

We often find ourselves complaining, at least in our own thoughts, how selfish people are or how corrupt the world is. Now stop for a moment and ask yourself, “Can it be any other way?” You may wish it was, but the fact is, it isn’t!

And, weren’t you just complaining about other people? Did you notice that other person in the street looking at you? Maybe he or she was thinking the same thing about you? Ah yes! Of course, you are different! But then, doesn’t everyone think that way also?

Here is a fact we don’t want to admit to ourselves, and yet it is a fact Ð we are selfish! In our relationships, we quarrel, argue and control each other. Why do we do this? Why do we have to be right? In fact, we would rather be right than happy (as the Course in Miracles states).

Is this normal? Yes, it is normal, but then again, what is normal? The ‘normality’ of daily consciousness is unconsciousness of who we really are!

So then, is selfishness normal? In our level of consciousness growth, it is considered normal to be selfish, to be better than another, to look out for yourself, to be number one. Selfishness seems like such a horrible word, and in not acknowledging our own selfishness, we are exhibiting our selfishness. You see how it works?

Honesty involves a growth in consciousness and doesn’t come easy. Initially, when we love someone, it is because we want to be loved back. When we do a service, there is the hope of being compensated. When we help another, we pat ourselves on the back. This is natural because we are under the false impression that there is ‘other’ than oneself.

There is only oneself - first you see it as ‘you’ in a personal sense; then, as your love for what is real becomes important, you start moving from the personal self to the universal oneself. There is only One-Self!

The point is this - is there something wrong with being selfish? Can you help it? Even your attempt to overcome it is another act of selfishness, known as the need to be in control.

I am not out to condemn you, for how can I? I am also you. We are all exactly alike, and this is the whole point. What you think is personal belief, ideas, or way of life is just another stranglehold to keep you from freedom, love and inner peace.

The key is to know this truth: that there is absolutely nothing wrong in the way you are being, simply because you cannot help it. You are not in control of as much as you think. The moment you start glimpsing this, even for a single moment, you start feeling free.

Everyone you meet is exactly like you. In truth, you are everyone you meet. It is the thought that you are separate, and that belief alone, that is hell on earth! We are all in this together. What we call personal is just another idea, for the personal is also universal.

I am not writing this just for you, for that would be selfish and unaware. I am writing this also for Burt. There is a voice inside Burt that starts writing, but it never sees Burt as separate from you, the reader.

Something wonderful happens when we start seeing this truth. I see myself in you, recognize that my selfishness is universal, and as a result, fully accept myself. In this acceptance of myself, I immediately accept you. Now do you see how love grows?

We are only talking about love and freedom. We are not proporting any beliefs, traditions, dogma, or convoluted philosophy. We are just being honest. And how refreshing that is!

I receive so many emails daily, and each one sees the world from their point of view and thinks there is something wrong with them. There is nothing wrong except the belief that your world is real!

Your world is no more real than my world! We are all in this together. We make spirituality into ‘something’ other than who we are. Subtle as it may be, there is always the thought that we are going to be enlightened, that sometime we will wake up spiritually, and our life will be transformed.

Transformation is possible only when you give up romantic ideas about it. Transformation is seeing what is obvious right here and now.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING REAL

What is it that we love and admire about people like Gangaji, Eckhart Tolle, and others like them? Isn’t it because they are real, authentic and original? We tend to look at them as separate and better than us, and this is where we make the mistake. They are not better than you; they have merely found what they had been seeking, which is the deathless essence of themselves. When they found it, they stopped seeking.

Does this seem extraordinary to you? Is it some great secret? Here is the scoop: the secret about you is the truth of you, and it is no secret at all! In fact, it is all you ever wanted, needed, and sought, but thought it was outside of you. It is the very eternal now itself!

The word ‘eternal’ sounds daunting because our limited consciousness dwells so continuously on that which is temporary. If we would allow ourselves to see the beauty and wonder that is here-now beyond our thoughts about it, we would shift our viewpoint quickly. It is like looking at a bug crawling on a window pane, and everything outside goes out of focus. Then, suddenly you shift your attention away from the bug and see the grander view outside and forget about the bug.

Similarly with us: we see our puny beliefs and everyday illusions as reality and fail to see the grander view of the eternal, infinite now. When are we going to allow ourselves to see this great one truth, that there’s nothing other than NOW? It is the whole secret of existence, and yet so obvious. It is the purpose of being, and it is the only understanding. What else is there to understand about life? It is all you have been seeking all along and never knew it.

You are not some belief to pay attention to, you are the ATTENTION itself. Similarly, you are not what you believe, but the power to believe itself. You are this moment itself, forever. Anything else other than this now-moment is not only an illusion, but an impossibility.

Now I ask you, and be honest, can it be any other way? Are you willing to allow this great transforming truth to penetrate you? If so, you are free and at peace no matter what the circumstances. Work with this ‘knowing’ until you recognize it, and that’s what it’s all about!!

What does the statement “There is only oneself,” mean to you?

Can you describe, in total honesty, how you see the world, then see this as only your viewpoint?

What is it that we are seeking every moment? (Be specific.)

When the statement says, “‘You’ are everyone you meet,” what does it mean to you?