The nature of the Self

Magdi Badawy, 09-26-2024

Welcome, everyone.

Lovely to be with you.

Since there are a couple of newcomers,
just a reminder that this meeting
will start with a short guided meditation,
which will be followed by whatever
questions you may have.

So, to start with,
if you can sit comfortably and,
either close your eyes
or turn your attention inward.
And welcome your experience
just as it appears to you.

There is a still quiet place
available to you.
Always there.

So welcome yourself
to and as this silent presence.

Which is peace.
There’s no effort which is required.

It’s a sort of welcoming
welcoming your experience
just as it is
without a goal,
without a personal purpose.

Whatever appears to you,
whether it’s a perception,
hearing these words,
a thought appears to you
effortlessly.

It appears to you as awareness,
taking on the form of a perception,
or a sensation.
It is seamless.

And you are not separate
from this awareness.

There is no distance
between yourself
and awareness.

Whether it takes on
the form of a thought
or a sensation,
or whether it takes on no form.

Awareness without a form.

Awareness shining from Itself to Itself.

Which is your experience
of being aware
you are aware.

The shining light of awareness.

There is freedom.
There is the sense of I,
which is
different from I am somebody
different from I am a father,
a mother,
a son,
a daughter

It’s the pure I
pure amness before being dressed up
with the body mind.

The I am
knows it is.

Amness,
meaning being
and knowingness,
meaning awareness,
go hand in hand.

That is the screen
of awareness,
which is
and
is self knowing.

I Am and I know that I Am.
Isness is and knows it is.

Allow these words
to transport you
wherever they do.
There is no need for you
to do anything, right now.

And then there are
images on the screen
of awareness:
thoughts,
memories,
perceptions,
preferences,
bodily sensations.

It’s a screen which
generates images
out of its absolute freedom,
the creative aspect,
infinite creativity.

The screen remains unmoved,
and untouched,
undisturbed
by its creativity.

Your direct experience
is this transparent,
invisible,
formless awareness,
every moment.

Colored
by thoughts,
images,
sensations.

In this moment,
awareness is shining,
hearing and sensing,
appear within awareness.
They appear to awareness,
to the Sat-Chit, being-knowingness.
Sat-Chit-Ananda-Nama-Rupa.

That is your experience.
The stream of thought
what you refer to as mind.
Sensations
and perceptions
and mentations are transient,
changing,
shifting,
morphing,
appearing
and dissolving.

And there is that
in your experience
which neither appears
nor disappears.

This knowingness,
this being knowingness,
consciousness,
awareness,
which is neither male nor female,
neither blue nor red nor green,
neither tall nor short.
That which is and cannot not be.

What is the true nature of the self?

The real nature of the self.

Is it not that which is
and cannot not be?

What is your true nature?
Is it a stream of thoughts
and sensations?
Or is it that which cannot not be?

This effortless presence-awareness,
formless,
invisible to the senses,
and yet undeniable.
Is it not?

Your true nature.
The one and only reality,
which we know experientially
as this causeless peace,
the ground of being,
our true home.

Thinking is conditioned.
It’s conditioned by
our upbringing,
our culture,
our experiences,
our past,
our religious beliefs,
tribal nature.

What is it that is not conditioned?
The unborn,
it’s available,
for you to find out,
because you are That.

The light,
the sunlight shines
on the surface of the pond,
glitters.

You are the pond.
The sunlight and the glitter.

Sometimes there is a wind,
you are the wind.

Sometimes there are wavelets,
you are the wavelets.