What's on your mind?
The world's turmoil regularly weighs us down. Our body has its health challenges. Relationships demand attention. Financial pressures mount.
Such is the human condition: we oscillate between crisis and calm, rarely dwelling long in the latter. When asked "How are you doing?" we instinctively catalog our circumstances, comparing present reality against preferred outcomes.
But notice where attention habitually resides. Fixated on the what—whatever currently occupies our mental landscape. A strained relationship commands our thoughts. Financial stress dominates awareness. A health scare captures complete attention.
The path to inner peace requires a fundamental reorientation: shifting focus from what to who. Rather than becoming absorbed in apparent problems, we instead notice who it is that recognizes there's an issue at all.
Who is it that knows difficulty exists? How does this who know?
We initially bristle at such seemingly insensitive questions. "What do you mean, 'How do I know there's a problem?!' Because I know!!"
I know.
Look more closely at that two word statement. I know. There's an I who knows there is stuff going on. Look closer. The I that knows is not what is going on. There's an I, and there's activity the I knows about. The I that knows is categorically distinct from the content it observes.
"I know" translates into "I am aware of something occurring—in the world, in relationships, in this body." But who is this I that maintains awareness? Who is this I that forms the eternal subject witnessing all objective experience?
This I encounters no problems. This I experiences no pain. This I remains untouched by stress. This I cannot and does not suffer. This I constitutes your true being.
The predicament arises when this I loses itself in the what—becoming so absorbed in circumstances that it forgets its essential I-nature and completely identifies with the objects of experience.
No longer does an I maintain awareness of a body navigating worldly challenges. The I has merged into bodily identification and its accompanying struggles.
No longer does an I observe events unfolding in the world. The I has dissolved its pristine awareness into the body's dealings with various external conditions.
As A Course in Miracles teaches: "The secret of salvation is this: that you are doing this to yourself." You are the one choosing to lose yourself in the what of worldly experience. Learning to redirect attention back to the who will completely transform your existence.
Join me in Thursday's class where we'll explore practices for making this essential shift from what to who and discover the profound peace that naturally follows. I look forward to seeing you then.