Our True Nature

Ineffable - our True Nature

The word 'Ineffable' means

• indefinable
• defying expression or description
• it cannot be expressed in spoken words
• something that lacks describable traits

Our essential nature is Life Itself - also called Awareness, Consciousness, Presence, the One Life. Our essential nature is not our body, or any part of it. It is that which makes the body Alive.

Life Itself is not an object - and that is why our essential nature is often called 'no-thing'. The Buddha called it 'Emptiness'.

This is not the same as 'nothing' - as it exists (the proof is that we are alive) but it is not a thing, an object, that can be sensed, measured or experienced.

Any words we use to describe our essential nature are just concepts - and they are 'not it'. The word is not the thing. The best the words can do is to 'point' to that which is beyond concepts and words. Apart from that, words and concepts are completely useless in this area.

Words and concepts are objects in Awareness / Consciousness, but cannot describe or encapsulate Awareness / Consciousness itself, which is not an object.

Our essential nature is literally beyond words.

Undescribable, ineffable.

Our essential nature is intrinsically unknowable as a mind object.

When Bob says "at no point can you say that you are not" he is referring to the fact of your own being. You are here. You exist Now. Existing is present tense. That is it.

And in the same breath he says "And you are aware".

When you look at the fact of your own existence, which is right here, right now, you cannot be looking at anything else other than your own true nature. When you look at the fact of your own being - right here, right now, the mind stops.

Yes - it is certainly 'no-thing' - not an object. But can you doubt the fact of your own being? That you are? That you exist? That you are aware?

You can sense it, resonate with it, rest in it, abide in it, feel the aliveness of it. That is your true nature.

But what happens if ideas start forming about who and what we are? 'I' am like this, 'I' am like that. 'I' have these qualities, these faults. 'I' will stick up for 'my' rights.

This is what happened when we were about the age of two or two and a half - and it gave rise to the reference point, the 'me', the apparent ego. It gave rise to the conceptual sense of self - the self image - the cause of all the suffering.

Know that whatever thoughts arise, whatever concepts form about your true nature - they are 'not it'.

Know that whatever you are told, or read - even very spiritual things - they also are 'not it'.

They are just thoughts and in this area thoughts and concepts are of no help at all.

The answer is not in the Mind.

The best that thoughts and concepts can do is to 'point' to that which is ineffable.

The word, the concept, the thought, is 'not it'.

Just be comfortable with not knowing.

Don't know it - just Be it.

Written by Mike Graham, 19 Jan 2008, last edited 29 Mar 2008