The House of Cards Falls When You Are Ready by Sundance Burke
The ego or mind-made false self is a house of cards that collapses completely the very instant it is realized that YOU, the perceiving consciousness, are not an object. The True Self is not difficult to realize, as it merely involves an unbiased looking at what you think and feel you are. In other words, it involves your interest in witnessing the mind’s story of self-identity.
The only real challenge to Self-realization is the issue of your readiness to face the possibility that you will have to let go of every self-concept and self-image that proves to be false by your own investigation. Even coming close to such an inquiry always provides the intuition that you are getting ready to face a great unknown. It is not uncommon to experience the fear of dying in this context. However, the intimation of death is more often related to the ego than the physical body.
So far, you have been attached to and identified with a matrix of concepts, beliefs and images about yourself, others and the world. “I am a human being, a short-lived and insignificant object (body) in a vast and enduring universe of greater things.” We don’t really say this consciously, but it is assumed by the power of our human conditioning. This human idea is called self-knowledge, but is it true? Are you really what you think or perceive? Even to contemplate or be curious about this question is a sign of your readiness for Self-realization.
It’s true, if you have been hanging your hat on mental ideas and images of self and they’re all perceived to be false, then their influence will disappear from your consciousness. However, you will never know whether your notions of self are false or true unless you put them to the test. Here are two powerful ways to test your concept and feeling of self for truth or falsehood.
First, in this moment or any other, look at any idea, image or feeling of self that arises in your awareness and ask yourself: Am I this perception?
This question really is: Am I an idea, perception, image or feeling?
Well, are you such a thing?
If not, why base your Being upon such a flimsy foundation. Nonsense does not require your serious attention. It can be safely and light-heartedly dismissed and even forgotten altogether.
The second way to test the mind is to ignore it completely for a single moment and intuit who you are in the absence of a single thought or assumption.
Check it out. Drop all knowledge and every desire for understanding and just Be.
Can you feel it?
What is the nature of this Being?
This truth cannot be realized, unless you taste what it is to be simply aware and free of all desire for a self-understanding.
If a thought arises like, “Oh, I cannot possibly be free of all thought, even for a moment.” Ignore this thought, surrender the doubt it voices and directly perceive the Being that remains and is deeper as your essence.
Yes, this is high adventure, and while it might appear to involve some risk, it does not. Just as it’s been said, “there is nothing to fear, but fear itself.” However, you cannot know this as Self-truth if fear keeps you from testing it for reality. Just as you cannot know the joy of eating without tasting the food, you must leave the idea of yourself for being.
What will you discover by self-inquiry? You will realize that beyond the mind and the individual body that it claims as self, you are Pure Consciousness, the awareness of all experience. Unknowable as anything of name or form, you are that which knows all experience.
That which you cannot know, cannot be. So, your death cannot be, because it would have to known by you, as life. Truth is not something external to you. Truth is within the Self you are. Let’s face it, as Consciousness, life is all you know now or have ever known. Death is a belief proposed by others and there aren’t any others, except as an idea and sense that is perceived by your conscious Being.
Thought-free awareness is Pure Consciousness. Essentially, this is the Self of all. Just because you can see a reflection of your Being in the mirror of mind doesn’t mean that you are that image. The mind serves one purpose only: it points to the source from which it arises. Turn away from the mirror and realize the Self directly.
This is the way open to all who are ready.
Peace & Blessings to All, Sundance Burke, author of Free Spirit