The Circle of One Self
The Self is One. Within and not separate, its own Self creates the infinite circle of creation: appearance, transformation, and disappearance as more appearance. The Self creates itself in the infinite multiplicity of forms, universes, worlds, and beings, yet remains always itself. And in that eternal dynamism of its own Self, its entirety becomes each form in which it appears.
The Whole becomes the part without becoming anything other than the Whole. And so, in that part, of which there are infinite forms, the entire identity knows “I am” as that form, as that being. So each one says “I. I am.” This is our identity, which expressed, says “I am this form,” even though the I is the Eternal One, the One Self, the Whole.
Accepting the appearance of oneself as form, we forget the eternal infinity of our Self and assume an individual identity as a personalized, egoic sense of self, which now experiences the infinity of its own forms as experience of world, relations, objects, work, pleasure, pain, entertainment, joys, despairs—all the panoply of experience.
This continues until some awakening appears—perhaps through pain, perhaps through ecstasy—but one begins to question the limitation of personal identity, the limitation of experience. This one begins to seek the depth of being, the depth of truth, of freedom, of love. Now the very same Self becomes a seeker.
There are those who exist in a state free from this forgetfulness that is associated with individual identity. Though they appear to be individuals--because of the formative creativity of the Self--in their identity they remain one with the One Self that all are. For the seeker, these Self-aware beings become the teacher, the guide.
And now the very same Self as a seeker, which has been one throughout, seeks itself through its awakened form, now in relation to a Self-aware guide. The seeker enters upon the path of Self-enquiry and the practice of knowing and simply being the knowing Self in meditation.
Meditation begins as a distinct practice taught by the teacher, the guide. Eventually, meditation is all. Meditation is the One Self.
And the circle, all within the same One Self, completes.
Om Jay Jay Guru-ji!
