Seeing Who You Really Are

By Richard Lang (excerpts)

The question is: Who are you really?

The hypotheses you are invited to test is: You are not what you look like. At the heart of your human self abides God, the Self, Buddha-nature, the Tao -- call it what you like. Nearer to you than your hands and feet, closer to you than your breathing, right at the very center of all your layers, is the source of the universe. This is who you really are. Awaken to this-- and consciously live from this truth -- and you will find peace and freedom, beauty and love, inspiration and guidance.

Don’t accept this hypothesis on trust… appeal to your direct experience of yourself, as opposed to what others say you are. This reliance on your own experience is the essential foundation of this enquiry. You and you alone, are the sole authority on who you really are.

What a stunning proposition we have here. If you put aside what others make of you (for them, you are an appearance, a “thing”) you will find you are utterly different -- you are boundless awareness containing all things. Within you is the source of the world. You are the source of the world. Surely it’s worth seeing if it’s true. And if it is, worth living in the light of this truth -- this wonderful astonishing, miraculous truth.

Central to this hypothesis is the view that you don’t have to change anything in your life to see who you really are, here and now. You are already that One. It is, rather, a matter of waking up to what you already are. This is discovery, not achievement, you don’t have to be practiced in spiritual disciplines, or clever, or good. Even if you are depressed, it’s okay. No matter what your personal history or circumstances, all you need do is pay attention to yourself right where you are. Look within. Be willing to attend to yourself afresh. Accept the evidence of your senses rather than the opinions of others. Then you will find the treasure at the heart of your own being. The treasure that is your own being.

How can you see who you really are? It’s simple and easy. Here is an exercise to guide your attention here to the core of yourself. What are you looking for? The mystics say that your true identity is transparent like water or air -- empty, with no qualities. It is boundless, timeless and awake. Where is it? Right where you are. And in what spirit is it best to look? As if for the first time, with an open mind.

Exercise 1:

Point at the wall ahead. See how solid and opaque it is. Slowly bring your finger down until it is pointing at the floor. You are still pointing at something, a surface. Next, bring your hand round and point to your feet…your legs…your trunk…your chest -- also somethings, also surfaces. Point to what is above your chest: to your neck, your face, your eyes…Or rather, to the place where people told you those things are to be found.

YOU ARE NOW (from your unique perspective) POINTING AT NO SURFACE,
AT NO THING AT ALL.

Check that it is featureless, colorless, transparent, boundless. Keep on pointing, seeing into emptiness; see how wide, how deep, how high is this no-thing that is on your side of that inpointing finger. And see how, just because it is so empty of everything, it is empty for everything. See how full it is of the whole colorful and changing scene -- of the ceiling, the walls, the window and the view from it; the floor, those legs and that trunk, and that pointing finger itself. See how the no-thing that you are is all the things that are on show.

Have you ever been other than this NOTHING/ ALL THINGS?

You are like a mirage in the desert, which the thirsty man thinks is water; but when he comes up to it he finds it is nothing, and where he thought it was, there he finds God. Similarly, if you were to examine yourself, you would find it to be nothing, and instead you would find God. That is to say you would find God instead of yourself, and there would be nothing left of you but a name without a form.

–Al-Alawi

Richard Lang is one of the most highly experienced teachers of this unique path of spiritual Awakening. From the UK, he has been giving these workshops for 35 years. Richard will be giving a workshop in Atlanta in January.

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