So, who are you? How do you figure that out? How do you realize your nature, when your whole life you’ve been taught to project yourself outside of yourself?
Fortunately, as human beings, we’re really, really smart, so we can work through it. First step is to understand what a projection is.
One of the easiest ways to think about it is to imagine yourself looking into a mirror. You don’t have to do it; just think about it. Your imagination is ripe enough for the task; imagine yourself looking into a mirror.
Logically we all know, when we look in the mirror, that we are not seeing ourselves; we’re seeing a reflection. But we have to stop and remember that. Our attention is so grabbed by the reflection that our gut reaction is to believe we’re looking at ourselves.
In one way, we are. We’re looking at this perfect reflection of ourselves. You can adjust your hair and brush your teeth. You know… everything that you need to do to make sure you look presentable. But what we want to see right now is how the reflection takes your attention and puts it outside of yourself.
We constantly, also, project ourselves onto other people. We focus on how they look at us, what we believe other people think about us. Our projections onto other people is a driving motivation for most people. We also project ourselves into very subtle things that are not us, like our thoughts. Our thoughts actually aren’t us; they’re just a reflection, just like the reflection in the mirror is a reflection.
So here’s a little exercise. You don’t have to shut your eyes and go into a meditative state. It’s so easy to do this exercise that you can just do it while you’re watching this video.
First: notice that you can see the video, but you can’t see your own face.
Next: Take your projection from what you’re seeing ourside of yourself, and bring it back inward. Notice that you can’t see your own face.
Anything outside is easy to see. You can even look down a little bit and see your nose, right? You can feel your face, but you can’t actually see your face because you are inside your face looking out.
Feel that for just a minute. See how moving yourself inward draws you back into yourself. Now, you are the being of yourself. Feel that. Step fully into yourself and realize your aliveness. You are you. It’s just literally that simple.
If you’re not grasping it completely practice going out and in. It’s like exercising a muscle. Your ability to focus yourself gets stronger the more you do it.
Let your attention go outside of yourself; focus on the thing you’re looking at, which at this moment is this video. Then remember to come back. Project out, then come back. Exercise that muscle: go out, come back, go out, come back.
When you are fully inside yourself you are in the solid ground of being. This is the full ground of being that we are always talking about. When you know this solid ground of being as yourself, then you have a point from which you can understand life.
Focus inside and feel it now. You’ll notice if you really pay attention with your being that there are no actual qualities that words can give it, just a full aliveness.
That’s you.