When you unearth yourself from the burden of your limiting thoughts, you begin to live in “I am” presence, that is, in the flow of pure consciousness arising. This is not dependent on thoughts like “I am a doctor,” “I am a mother,” or “I am a yoga teacher.” You are simply “I am.” To add descriptions after that simple truth is to add an I-dentity, a label, a story over what is. You become identified with your actions, rather than rooted in surrendered being.
You are a human being, not a human doing. Your value is in your beingness. Though you do beautiful or horrific things, your inherent goodness lies beyond that. You are born of the infinite. To the infinite you must return.
The energy of life is dynamic. You may hold on tight to the notion of yourself “doing” to retain a feeling of solidity or control, some sense that your perception of a separate self matters. From that perspective, you might fear that if you were to just be, you would turn into a puddle and do nothing. You might fear that you would not know how to even get out of bed in the morning. But as you let go of the I-dea of I-dentity, the I-dea of being an I-solated I-sland, separate, fighting for your own sense of self-importance, you touch a sacred dance that has been carrying you all along. You then see that the fear of doing nothing cannot be real, because all that is is always dancing. When you are in non-resistance to what is, you are like a cosmic dancer within life’s sacred unfolding.
When you live on auto-pilot and do not question the nature of reality, you believe that you are the doer. You believe you are in control, in charge, creating your life. But do you really have control? Perhaps it seems so, for limited times. You feel you made it this far and got the job you wanted, or you succeeded at completing a daunting task. You could feel accomplished and proud until you find yourself laid off or your best-laid plans gone awry.
What is it that moves life forward? What energy propels evolution? Mystics will say that this is the divine force of life. We have no control over it. It is our folly, our misperception due to our limited senses, to think that we are doing, when in fact we do nothing at all. The mystic Nisargadatta Maharaj says in his classic book “I Am That”, “Doership is a myth born from the illusion of ‘me’ and ‘the mine’.” The Buddha is quoted as saying, “Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof.”
If you think you are separate, you will feel the need for control to try to regain connection. But you cannot find connection from a divided mind. Instead, learn to go beyond your attachment to separation and see yourself as part of the whole. Rather than identifying with your actions, see yourself as a servant to the whole, a vessel for divine energy.
To anchor this awareness into your consciousness, practice this month’s meditation, “How to Discover Your Magnificent Interconnection with All Things.”
Parvati is an award-winning musician (I Am Light, Electro Yog, Yoga In The Nightclub), yogini (YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine), author (Aonani of Avalon, Confessions from Your Awakened Self) and founder of the not-for-profit Parvati.org. All her work is dedicated to protecting all life on Earth by establishing the Marine Arctic Peace Sanctuary (MAPS).More info: parvati.tv; parvati.org.