Earlier this month I spent from 6.30am to 10pm every day asking myself ‘Who am I?’
It turns out I’m a bit of animal.
I was part of a satori/zen awareness intensive with 29 others. The strong set structure consisted of 40-minute sessions in dyads where we took in in five-minute turns to explore the in-the-moment direct answer that timeless question ‘who am I?’
We’d do up to eight sessions a day, set around five hours of Osho Active meditation. Why? To support our focus inwards where the real us, our divinity, and the true answers wait.
Spontaneously and quietly rising from my interior in different sessions, the answer to ‘Who am I?’ was:
While seeing them ‘out there’, I’d simultaneously sense them inside my body, as if I was them. The walrus’s reassuring, rock-flat solidity. The squirrel’s bushy tailed-enthusiasm for life. The soft, steady strength of the mole’s paws digging through the earth. The magnificent perfection of the lion’s powerful poise.
Unifying all the animals who came to me was their almost unbearably inner beauty. An absolute simplicity and total ‘here I am-ness’ found only in an innocent being with no analysing mind, no hatred, no doubt; incapable of being anything other than the perfection God made them.
That was their gift to me – saying ‘Remember this state; your natural self. Effortlessly pure and perfect. THIS is who you are.’
Thank you, brothers and sisters. I’ve always felt a deeper ineffable affinity with animals than humans. You’ve helped me understand better why.
NB. A few hours after writing this post I logged onto Facebook and the first thing I see is this Rumi poem:
T
It turns out I’m a bit of animal.
I was part of a satori/zen awareness intensive with 29 others. The strong set structure consisted of 40-minute sessions in dyads where we took in in five-minute turns to explore the in-the-moment direct answer that timeless question ‘who am I?’
We’d do up to eight sessions a day, set around five hours of Osho Active meditation. Why? To support our focus inwards where the real us, our divinity, and the true answers wait.
Spontaneously and quietly rising from my interior in different sessions, the answer to ‘Who am I?’ was:
- an eagle
- a mole
- a pelican
- a (totally adorable) fluffy white-bellied kitten much like this one
- a seahorse
- a lion, and lioness
- a squirrel
- a Shetland pony
- King Kong. Honest
- a walrus
- a little garden bird.
While seeing them ‘out there’, I’d simultaneously sense them inside my body, as if I was them. The walrus’s reassuring, rock-flat solidity. The squirrel’s bushy tailed-enthusiasm for life. The soft, steady strength of the mole’s paws digging through the earth. The magnificent perfection of the lion’s powerful poise.
Unifying all the animals who came to me was their almost unbearably inner beauty. An absolute simplicity and total ‘here I am-ness’ found only in an innocent being with no analysing mind, no hatred, no doubt; incapable of being anything other than the perfection God made them.
That was their gift to me – saying ‘Remember this state; your natural self. Effortlessly pure and perfect. THIS is who you are.’
Thank you, brothers and sisters. I’ve always felt a deeper ineffable affinity with animals than humans. You’ve helped me understand better why.
NB. A few hours after writing this post I logged onto Facebook and the first thing I see is this Rumi poem:
T
This is a subtle truth:
whatever you love, you are.