A Transcendent Recognition

This self-recognition can't be understood in the mind. It's a leap that the mind can't make. The mind may accept or deny that you are awareness, but either way it can't really understand. It cannot comprehend. Thought cannot comprehend what is beyond thought. That's why we call this a transcendent recognition, a transcendent revelation. It's actually our identity waking up from the prison of separation to its true state. This is both simple and extraordinarily profound. For some people it may come as a very quick flash, almost like a flash of lightning, where it is suddenly recognized that you are this awareness that's been watching from the inside all along. It may come as this sort of flash, and it may be gone just as quickly. Or it may flash upon you and last for a longer period of time. For others, it may flash and take hold, allowing them to realize their true nature indefinitely. No matter how it comes, it is very important to realize that this is not something that the mind decides on. It is a flash of revelation.

One of the simplest pointers I can give is to remember that this process of subtraction, this process of inquiry and investigation, really takes place from the neck down. We may ask the question-'What am I?' or 'Who am I?' or 'Am I this thought?'-and the question, of course, originates in the mind. But once we've asked the question, it's very important that we don't stay in the mind. We must turn our attention to the neck down. We have this whole beautiful thing called a body and this kinesthetic sense of being, and that's where inquiry really happens.

An example of this is when you ask yourself, 'What am I?' The first thing most people realize is that they don't know. They don't actually know who or what they are. So most people will go into their minds to try to figure it out. But the first thing that your mind knows is that you don't know. In spiritual inquiry that's very useful information. 'I don't know what I am. I don't know who I am.' Once you recognize that, you can either think about it or you can actually feel it. What is it like to feel in your being that you don't know what you are? What's it like when you look inside to find out who you are and you don't find an entity called 'you'? What does that open space feel like? Feel it in your body; let it register in the cells of your being. This is real spiritual inquiry. This transforms what might have been just an abstract thought in the mind into something that is very visceral, very kinesthetic, and very spiritually powerful.