Who Am I?

Am I my thoughts? Am I my emotions? Or perhaps there is something more?

I talked with someone today who said that they felt numb. They felt that they just couldn't love everybody. While reading the newspaper, this person saw an aricle about a father who had kept his daughter locked in the house for 24 years. She thought, how dispicable this man is. How can we love everyone when there are people 'out there' who are so unloveable? If we are all parts of the Divine, having a human experience, can there be any aspect of the Divine that the Divine does not love? Do we judge those parts as being unloveable and project them out onto the collective? Are these parts of ourselves that we hate and don't want to own?

One of the Spiritual principles is that 'We are everything. There is nothing outside ourselves'. And here is our struggle. If we accept this as true then there is a part of us that goes into self-loathing. How could we commit such heinous acts? And if we say this is false, then we project out all the parts that we JUDGE as not good enough. What we cannot accept as parts of ourselves must then play themselves out in the world unless and until we are willing to own that they are us.

There is a Hawaiian Psychiatrist who was asked to work with criminally insane patients at an instituition in Hawaii. There had been very high turnover at the institution because the patients were so violent and there was high risk of physical injury. The Hawaiian Psychiatrist agreed to take on the patients but had certain criteria for working with the patients. He said that he would stay in his office and review the files of the patients but would not have personal contact with any of the individuals. Although this was unheard of, it was agreed. So each day the psychiatrist would sit at his desk and read each file. He would read about all the horrendous things that each of the patients had experienced (both things done to them and things they had done to others).

As he slowly read each entry, he said "I'm sorry and I love you". As he continued to do this day after day, the patients began to calm down, no longer needing medication. And eventually, even the most violent patients were able to be unshackled and sent home. The psychiatrist explained that he saw each case file as aspects of himself that he had projected out into the world. And by saying, "I'm sorry and I love you" to those parts, he was calling them back home to himself. He was no longer in judgement but in full acceptance with what is. There was no longer a need for those parts to be projected out and continue to act out!

Fundamentally, this is what we are all wanting - to be forgiven/forgive ourselves and to be loved/love ourselves!

The Vietnamese poet, Thicht Nat Han, wrote a poem entitled "Call Me By My True Names". In this poem he says "I am the one who is Murdered and I am the Murderer. I am the Rapist and the one who is Raped". What he is saying is that we are and have been/done everything.

Several years ago I had a dream and in the dream I was sitting on the top of a hill looking down at a field of gently blowing wheat grass. I saw a young woman running across the field and as I watched her, I suddenly was her and I was running away from someone. I fell to the ground as I was tackled by a man. He began to violently rape me. And then I was the man raping the woman. I realized that I was both the man(tyrant) and the woman(victim) and I was the one on the hill who witnessed it all.

I knew upon awakening that I was everything and everything was me. And I am none of it. I am Conscious Awareness.