A common problem that some of my one-to-one Clearing clients have is not having a clear definition of concepts associated with their goals.
For example if someone doesn’t know what a marriage is and they want a good marriage, how can they ever achieve this? The same goes for concepts like success, the spiritual path and authenticity. Frequently, I will get clients to participate in a clarification technique where they tell me what a concept is and what it is not.
We go back and forth until they make a breakthrough, the lights go off and they say “Ah, that’s what it is”. It’s a refining process similar to purifying gold: separating out the precious metal from what it is not. It is a simple and remarkable technique. You may want to try this for yourself.
One of the most important concepts to define is the concept of “fulfillment”. We all want to feel fulfilled in life but if we don’t know what it is, we will not likely recognize it when it occurs or even achieve it. Years ago I did this clarification technique and this is what I came up with. This definition has inspired me for many years on my path of awakening.
Here it is: fulfillment: “Filling your life with the fullness of your true self”.
Sit with this a moment and get the full impact of this definition.
Let me explain this further. Many people although they won’t outwardly admit it, feel a sense of emptiness inside. They often try to fill the void with food, TV, alcohol, overwork, money, over-helping others and other compulsions. Some of us eventually come to understand the illogic of our consumer culture which has programmed us to believe we can fill the inside with the outside . We realize if we don’t go inside we eventually go without and the real thing that can fill us is not a thing, it is ourselves.
When we are fully being in what we are doing we are more present to whatever experience we are having whether it is exercising, eating, having sex or sitting on a beach with family. Enjoyment is a function of being fully conscious in our experience. We are more engaged. We show up. But this leads to a question: “Who is it that needs to show-up?” Surely it is not some false personality? If it is a personality then we just become “full of ourselves” or egotistical. The ego’s purpose is to be highlighted as special or significant in an attempt to get something from others: love, attention, sympathy, protection, etc. Its modus operandi is: “Fake it ’till you make it” but what often occurs is “Fake it ’till you make it fake”.
The eventual outcome of living in an ego state is difficulty in relationship, suffering and eventual isolation because true intimacy and connection with others is deficient. One cannot achieve anything real when it originates from falseness. Fullness of ego becomes empty of self.
So obviously what we need to live from is the fullness of our true self. When we are living from our true being, we relate to others from a place of wholesomeness and naturalness. The true self does not need to be filled for it is already whole. It needs no additional self. It does not need anything to pump itself up or feel special because it is already radiant, magnificent and expansive.
Just as pure gold does not need any more gold to make itself more gold, the true self does not need anymore of itself, to be itself. It is 100% pure. It needs no improvement. It is complete. It really has no need other than to be itself, to be lived from and to engage with others fully exploring, becoming conscious of and expressing its full potential in life i.e.”Filling life with the fullness of the truth of itself”.
The one proviso is this: You cannot be your true self unless you know who you are… just as we cannot achieve success unless we know what success is. This is obvious but it is the most overlooked factor in the field of personal growth, spirituality and success.
Sometimes people think they know themselves because they know their interests, talents or abilities or understand their past influences. But these are only aspects of their personality. Change any of these and you change the persona. That which is subject to change cannot be true, for that which is true stays itself.
Some think who we are is energy, or spirit or we are the witness of our experience but the true self is beyond even those. (Who is noticing energy, spirit or who is witnessing the witness? There is a self noticing all these, who’s that?).
The question “Who am I?” is one of the most important questions to answer in life. If we forgo it, we cannot find fulfillment.
Many people, especially those on a spiritual path overlook this crucial inquiry, taking on the beliefs in various teachings and books that come in and out of fashion in the spiritual marketplace: non-duality, non-self, god-self, divine love, pure potential, I Am consciousness, etc. They miss the fact that a belief is just a description of a state of being not the true being itself just like the menu is not the meal. Even taking on a belief about something that others say is true is just as much a trap as believing in something that is false, because we have not experienced it firsthand.
When spiritual people take on a belief about who they think they are, they end like anyone else acting out of a personality… a spiritual state with its fake peacefulness, happiness, and equanimity…the ego of being egoless.
The only solution as I see it is to go beyond all this business of beliefs, religion, dogma, personaliy and directly experience your true self for yourself…ruthlessly asking “Who am I?” with every thought of self that arises, facing the unknown with courage and persistence and never giving-up until suddenly out of the blue the flash of enlightenment occurs and you wake-up to the one you have been being all your life (but just not conscious of.)
When you find out who is empty, you will be full. You will fall off your chair and laugh your ego off. Then the achievable prospect of filling your life with the fullness of yourself will be the greatest blessings of your existence.
For those of you inspired to take the journey of finding out who you are click on: the Coming Home retreat.
Russell Scott