When we find what we are and explore living from it, we may find we have a three-part nature. I mentioned this in a previous post and thought I would say a few more words about it.
What we are to ourselves
We may take ourselves to most fundamentally be this human self, but if we look, we may find something else.
We may find that to ourselves, we are capacity for the world, and what all our experiences – including of this human self and the wider world – happens within and as.
Three distinctions
There are three distinct things going on here.
In a conventional sense, and to others, we are a human being in the world. This is not wrong, it’s just not our most fundamental nature.
When we find our true nature, and we notice that all our experiences happen within and as what we are, we also notice that all phenomena to us are one. Any distinctions come from an overlay of thought. When it comes to our field of experience, we are all of it and also not fundamentally any of it. Said another way, we are the always shifting oneness, and not fundamentally any it.
And as capacity for the world, we are what it all happens within and as. This is our true nature.
When we find this for ourselves, we may see that all three are here and part of what we notice and live from and as. We find ourselves as a human being in the world, as oneness, and as capacity for it all.
The value of wholeness
Most people focus on just one of these aspects: who we are in the world. And that’s understandable, natural, and innocent. Although it does leave out some of the richness of the wholeness of who and what we are.
Some spiritual traditions and teachers (e.g. Neo-Advaita) tend to focus on another aspect: what we are, or even a part of what we are. As a human being in the world, they too have to live their life and take care of that life, but they sometimes downplay or minimize this in how they talk about it.
I like to embrace the wholeness of it. What I find is that I am capacity for the world. The world as it appears to me happens within and as what I am, as oneness. And in a conventional sense, and to others, I am a human being in the world.
And more
Any distinction comes from an overlay of thought, and we can make other, different, and additional distinctions depending on what we want to highlight.
For instance, as our true nature, we can find that we are awake no-thing and that this is what allows any and all of the experiences we have. This is something we can bring attention to and explore, and there are specific practices that help us explore this facet of what we are. Exploring this can be interesting since it is, in a sense, the polar opposite of the conventional view, and it can bring about shifts and transformation. It’s a place to visit and then return to the wholeness.