Split Identities

There is only one existence.

And it is all you.

The great masters have delivered us this simple message for many years: “you are one with everything and everything is one with you.” Everything you see… this is you. Everything you know… it too, is you. Everything you think, is you. Everything you believe, you.

I’ll wager you might disagree. For example, you’ll say, “but that car over there, surely that cannot be me.” A change in perspective here is needed to understand reality. Think now, is it really true that the car is not you? How do you know this? Who told you this? Whereupon did you make something up out of thin air and begin to call it as fact?

Think more deeply, into the words you use. You are sloppy. You understand this world as one of subjects and objects, and therefore as a world divided. So it goes: Your body is yours, and your mind is yours and your things are yours, and his things are his and that tree is a tree and that rock a rock and all these things are not you nor yours and so on.

This is a paradigm, which I can tell you is at the least not inherent in reality -- for there is another equally convincing perspective you might consider -- and at the most flat out wrong. Supposing there are not objects and subjects. Supposing there is only one existence. Supposing the car is as much you... as you. Where does this leave “you”?

But before comes the answer to that most critical question, let us do more than suppose and in fact put forward some arguments in order that this other paradigm might become at least somewhat convincing to you. The claim we need to substantiate -- “everything is you.” Here it is.

Well…

... I am going to change the equation slightly. Do not be disappointed here, you will find such “equation flippers” to be common along the road to understanding. Just try and keep with me here and one day it will all become clear, ok? Now we begin.

When I say “everything is you,” I do not really mean “you” as you probably mean “you.” What I mean is that the “you” that you know is in fact, nowhere, leaving the rest, which is everywhere, to be ... “not you.” Once you realize that everything is “not you,” you are just as well to call everything “you” simply as a manner of speaking, though this new “you” will have a slightly different meaning.

That meaning is more or less this: that which senses.

That which senses is not of the world; rather, it senses the world. Anything in the world, anything that can be sensed, is not you, save through the said manner of speaking by which we might call it all you.

Now now, I play with words and choreograph a dance of truth and fiction that my point may captivate you without even your awareness of it. Try not to get lost in the weeds; see the bigger picture, if you can.

Here is what all this seeming sophistry leads to: that sensed and the one who senses are one and the same, and both of them are you.

Think of this: when your senses go, so goes with them the objects. When you die, all the world disappears. When you no longer sense an object, it is gone to you. When an object is gone to you, you no longer sense it. Don’t you see that “objects” are in fact very connected to the senses? We cannot say that “this object exists outside of me.” We can only say that “my senses exist only with the objects and the objects only with my senses.” How then, have we decided the two are different? Perhaps the mind labels it so, but the reality belies it.
Now, as is tradition around here, let's look at you.

More specifically, let's have an example and have ourselves just a sip of the power of this paradigm.

You see a pretty girl, who you want to ask on a date, but you are too shy to ask. And so you become upset that you lacked the conviction to pursue what you wanted, and even come to resent the girl for bringing this pain into you. Now you become depressed, oh pity!

You objectifier. You slicer and you dicer. You’ve bungled the entire situation. You have sinned, and now you will repent through the suffering you’ve brought on yourself.

What went wrong was a simple assumption: you decided that you are the one who wants the girl. Now, this was nowhere apparent or reasonable to assume by any measure, but somehow, in your childish naivety, you went ahead and assumed it nonetheless.

I’ve informed you that everything is you, but you are insistent on believing you are simply “the person who wants the girl.” Look what happens as a result -- everything that prevents you and the girl being together is now “not you.” It is some object outside of you and of your control, an obstacle to overcome and a source of pain and stress in your piteous life.

But what is the reality?

The reality is you chose not to talk to the girl. “You” are not the one who wanted the girl, “you” are quite literally the one who did not.

By definition.

Because, you see, that is what quite literally happened. Am I wrong? You made a choice not to talk to the girl. Why? Don’t look at me now for I know you will; but rather ask yourself the question. Then you will learn just a bit more about who you are, and only then will you be able to change.

And do it without fear. Reality, who you are, which is everything -- it cannot hurt you. It simply exists. When you divide things up, bungle and jumble it all, now there comes subjects and objects, and plans and obstacles. Now you’ve decided things are outside of “your” control, because you have decided “you” are limited to this or that goal or idea. Now comes fear and pain and suffering. See precisely how you cage yourself?

But I promise, in knowing yourself, and in seeing truth, there are no obstacles, nor difficulties.

It’s all you.

Begin to see this, and you will gain control over everything, become empowered in everything, and understand everything.

​For there is only one existence, and it is everything, and you, are it.