Recognize that you ARE

Right now, what is the only thing you can be absolutely sure of? What is it that has NEVER changed, while the world, the body, the mind, have all appeared to change?

Right now, there is an obvious sense of existence and knowingness - Nisargadatta called it the "I AM" - prior to words... You know that you exist, that you ARE. That's completely undeniable and inescapable. Look now...

Do you need any words to know that you are? Do you need any concepts or beliefs to know that you are? If all thoughts stop, does that sense of existence and beingness stop? This doesn't have a label, it's not a "thing" which can be found... any thoughts and words used to describe it are occurring IN it. This is the "I AM".

And the I AM doesn't think - thoughts register IN THIS. The I AM doesn't move - movement registers IN THIS. Literally everything that happens, happens IN the I AM. IN this beingness, this Consciousness, this knowingness...

There is a pure, empty registering of all that happens - but the mind comes in AFTER and gives it a label - "thinking", "suffering", "ME"... "I'm trying to find the I AM"... ANY movement or thought in an attempt to quantify or qualify, conceptualize or point, is ALREADY too much, ALREADY some "thing", some "form" in the empty knowingness.

The I AM doesn't need to be found - the I AM is fully present PRIOR TO any thoughts about it, prior to any concepts about what it is. Even the words "I AM" happen IN THIS which is ALREADY present, ALREADY what you are.

There is no attainment or practice or method - these happen in the ALREADY present I-AM-NESS... these are appearances or happenings on top of or within the obvious sense of existence and beingness.

This I AM is not something which can be attained - it is INESCAPABLE, UNAVOIDABLE. It is the basis for all that appears. Even the IDEA that "I am a person, separate from the world, living a life, sometimes happy, sometimes suffering, seeking a way out" - this is simply a movement of energy IN the already-present being-knowing, a creation of subject/object in the mind, an OVERLAY to THAT which is totally clear and empty, an open space in which ANY concept is allowed effortlessly, accepted completely. The words AND the definitions of the words all happen AFTER or ON TOP or IN THIS knowingness.

Simply recognize that you ARE. Anything else, literally anything perceivable or conceivable, is mind.