Seeking THAT which was never lost
You are not a person. A person is a concept, like "mind" is a concept. There is no such thing as "mind" - mind is only a word used to contain present experiences - thoughts, memories, imagination.
The word "person" is only a concept, a conceptual container used to categorize the body, the personality, the life story, the memories and imagination, the image of ME, the constructed facade or persona, the ego, the propped-up "self", the store-front we call ME.
There is no such thing as a person - person is a concept - it's a belief, that there is someone separate, some entity abiding in that appearance of body-mind, some soul or independent life form...
The idea of ME-the-person comes from indoctrination, from society, the core belief in a bundle of beliefs issued to us at a young age, when we believed in things like "Santa Claus" and the tooth fairy.
The concept of "person" is ingrained and concrete - yet it falls away quite simply upon investigation.
The body is there, thoughts are there - but the "person" is like a ghost, like a phantom, not there in actuality but there under pretense - it's an assertion.... an assumption left unquestioned.
The instant it is questioned, there is doubt. It cannot be taken for granted. The "person" I took myself to be isn't as obvious as I thought. The "person" I took myself to be is only a learned belief. The "person" I took myself to be cannot be found.
The body is there. Thoughts are there. So what AM I? I am THAT which is looking, THAT which is knowing, THAT which is the ever-present openness or subjectivity or "awareness" - THAT has always been there - THAT isn't a "person" after all yet the idea of "person" comes in thought.
YES?
Aren't you here, right now? Yes. Yet YOU are NOT that body nor that mind. YOU are this activity of knowing - what is actually referenced by the word "I"...
You remain unmoved while the body and thoughts do their dance and disappear each night.
You do not think yet thoughts are known because of you.
You are not involved in the activities of the world yet the world cannot BE without YOU.
Once this idea of a separate "person" falls away, known to be a false belief, a mistaken identity, a belief in a dream - then what-you-are becomes blindingly obvious.
If we talk about "things", you are this no-thing-ness, prior to yet the space in which all "things" come and go.
If we recognize the illusory nature of "things" as only appearances - if we recognize that the subject/object equation is simply a translation, not actual reality - if we realize that the appearance and the knowing of the appearance are the SAME THING...
Then - you cannot be found apart from the world. You have lost your meaning, your identity. You have lost your entire life story. The "person" never was. Therefore the "seeker" never was.
And Oneness is no longer something to be sought after. Oneness is your actual Being.





