Noble Spirit Lion ~ Artist Andrew A. Gonzalez
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It’s Always the “I”
Just as God enjoys the world through the senses of every one of us, so do I – who, like you, am that very God – enjoy the world through anything I become aware of.
When I identify with the mind, I use it to create through. When I identify and operate as the ego, I use that to create through. The imagination, the feelings, etc.
No function works except I operate through it, energizing and directing it.
Usually I remain quiet and just observe, allowing the faculty I created to make recommendations or the form I created to carry out an action.
But what is common to everything that happens in my life – whether I say it was my mind or ego or heart that did it – is that “I” am around, observing and directing the show. “I” am reaching the conclusions and making the decisions.
When I say “No,” we call it me having a bad mood or being down, etc. No, that is the “I” directing the show.
Or, another classic, we say “You made me angry.” No, “you” didn’t. It’s always the “I.”
When I utter a decision in a fit of anger, we say that it’s my vasana (or the bottle) talking. No, it’s the “I” talking, having identified with and seeing the world through the filter of that vasana.
Whatever filter it chooses to look at the world through, it’s still the “I” that reaches a conclusion and decides to act. (1)
We tend to remove the “I” from the equation in favor of the body-mind complex. The latter may carry out the wishes of the “I,” but that doesn’t change things.
It always has been, always is, and always will be “I” who decides to act, whoever or whatever form carries out the action. Upon this fact is personal responsibility based.
If what I’ve said is the truth, all other things being equal, we should experience a feeling of relief and release upon reading it. (2) If what I’ve said is not the truth or takes us further from it, we should experience either no release or further confusion and frustration.
Footnotes
(1) The “I” could also dismiss the vasana but it chooses not to.
(2) Because the truth will set us free.
