I am not what does not exist

I am not what does not exist

This confusion again…

It’s the third time this week that this theme has come up in my conversations: the frequent confusion around non-duality.

So I thought it was time to write an article to clarify this point which, very often, hinders a deeper understanding of what we truly are.

It’s actually quite common, on the spiritual path, to go through a foggy phase, where we mistake unity for illusion.

Where we believe that non-duality means:

I am everything I perceive.

I am this table.

I am this fan.

I am my shadow.

I am the rustling of leaves.

I am all of that…

But no.

Truth does not blend with what changes.

The eternal does not merge with the ephemeral.

What changes is not me

Everything that is born will die.

Everything that begins will end.

Whatever is perceptible is already fading.

And so:

I cannot be what dies.

I am not the impermanent.

I am not what changes, what breaks, what withers, what passes, what appears or disappears.

I cannot be objects.

I cannot be plants.

I cannot be the body.

I cannot be emotions.

I cannot even be the idea of myself.

These are forms.

And forms pass.

I am not what passes.

“Everything you see merely reflects the wish you had that it be true.”

— A Course in Miracles, Lesson 325

I am not in the body — the body is in the mind

As long as I believe I am a body, or inside a body, I’m already believing that what changes is real.

I’m facing in the wrong direction.

In truth, the body is not a prison.

It’s a projection.

A reflection of the thought of separation.

And this thought isn’t even sinful — it’s simply false.

The body is in the mind.

Just like everything else I perceive.

And as long as I believe in their reality, I keep them alive within.

I feed the illusion from the inside.

But there is another way.

Another path.

Another memory.

Dissolving is not merging

It’s not by saying “I am this chair, I am this flower, I am this sound” that I heal.

It’s by saying: this is not me.

And looking at it without judgment.

Without wanting to erase it or transform it.

Simply seeing it for what it is: a passing symbol, a reflection of nothing, an image that will fade.

And me?

I am what does not move.

I am the stillness.

The formless.

The Uncreated.

“You are not in the dream. You are dreaming the dream. And that makes all the difference.” — Arten, from “The Disappearance of the Universe”

I cannot be what decays.

I cannot be what fades.

I cannot be what dies.

Therefore:

I am not what I see.

I am what sees.

And even that, one day, I will go beyond.

The Tao whispers the same

In the Tao Te Ching, it is said:

“The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.

What can be seen is not the real.”

What I name, I limit.

What I see, I distort.

What I touch, I lose.

But the Tao — like Truth — cannot be grasped.

Because it is. And it remains.

Silent, formless, unchanging.

Likewise, in Buddhism, we learn not to cling to phenomena:

all composed things are impermanent.

And so, any identification with them is suffering.

Emptiness does not mean that nothing exists,

but that nothing exists independently.

It’s another way of saying:

What you believe to be you… is not.

Forgiveness is the way out

Forgiveness is not about justifying what happened, nor about loving things as they are in the world.

It is about seeing them for what they are not,

and releasing my attachment to the image I made of them.

Forgiveness is that peaceful clarity that says:

“What I see does not come from God.

And therefore, what I am has nothing to do with it.”

I am not this body.

I am not this story.

I am not this fearful thought.

I am not what does not exist.

And because it does not exist, I am free.

I am.

I am Being.

I am pure Spirit.

I am the Kingdom.