The following is an e-mail exchange that may help to clarify "me"...

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Hello *****,

> Sky- every email I read from you leaves me speechless.

Beautiful, I give thanks. Speechless is a quality of silence that calls from the heart. Your questions and comments here are wonderfully simple and direct.

> I have to read the poems a few times to begin to understand them. I really enjoy them though.

I'm glad you are enjoying. Yes, the enjoyment, sense of joy comes from a deeper understanding that goes beyond words or mental/intellectual knowledge. It resonates, so to speak, with the heart of who/what we are.

So, do not worry too much about understanding them, feel them, enjoy whatever they bring up in you to feel. The mental striving to understand them gets in the way of what they are expressing. If a mental insight comes, okay, but it is not needed to be held on to or be formed into a belief. Insight usually comes in letting beliefs go, letting the freshness of the moment inform, our inherent wisdom discern.

One makes room for new information by not holding onto, fixating on, a limited definition that is subject to change.

It is paradoxical in the sense that the more you try to understand them, or define what they mean, the less the message they are conveying will be understood, known. Understanding will come, if it's needed.

> So how does one find themself? I feel like a hamster running in a wheel and not going anywhere.

Yes, this is the common expression of our times isn't it?

And the answer is so simple it is generally overlooked:
Are there two selves? One that searches and one that is found?

Who/what is it that is searching? It is this sense of "searcher", of "me",
that is to be investigated.

In the identification of a "searcher" the "search" is created. Or visa versa. The hamster on the wheel...

The individual identity of ourselves, who we are told we are from birth, becomes the "searcher", and the "search" is to find/define ourselves. To find/define "who we are". Growing up we define who it is we have been taught we are by our abilities, limitations, by experiences. But these are subject to change and are not the true indicators of self, that which we are consistantly.

The mind, naturally, is a tool for discernment, defining environment and the experience of life, to keep the little vulnerable body(the child) safe. To help it grow. But the bigger it gets, the more mature it becomes, the more the definitions of life are revealed not to be what they were informed/believed to be. The more the mind matures the more it will see through the illusions(definitions) that have been taught. The more it can discern unaided by mental knowledge, no longer needing to rely on beliefs of what it is told. Becoming self-reliable, self-responsible.

Nothing wrong with the definitions, only that in the primary identification with them does it seemingly obscure our inherent undefinable, undividable nature.

The society structure, as it is now, generally teaches the belief of a certain way of life: you are a body that belongs to this family, you are to go to school, get a job, find a home and/or mate, create or expand your family, live out the rest of your individual existence in support or service to this structure. And if there is a certain religious belief, then it is included in this structure.

Now obviously, this is not the only definition of a way to live, but this is the predominant belief that is being projected, at least in most societies. I am not saying there is anything wrong with this structure of life, with family or anything, only that if this way is identified with as the only true way to live life, or that one must live life this way to be accepted and happy, then there is unnecessary suffering that is created.

Then, also, there are all the various ways to live out this certain structured way of living. And in the over-identification with "our/my" way of life, believing it to be better or the "right" way to live, then war is created and enacted on "other" and "their" way of life.

And it all stems from the initial belief that who one is, is primarily a body (and the overidentification with the body's instincts for survival), that that is the fundamental truth and reality of who we are, above all else. That this is what supposedly comes first. But, is this true?

There is generally a recognition of "spirit" or a life force, but how much of our lives goes to truly being aware of this? How much of our attention goes to obsessing, fixating on our physical reality?

The analogy, "You can't run away from yourself.", is appropriate. Typically this is used to help people recognize when they are ignoring destructive patterns of behavior. When this is acknowledged there can be a deeper seeing into ourselves, an investigation of our beliefs and patterns. Then, if there is willingness, there can be a deeper looking and telling the truth of how these patterns are created/perpetuated. What are the mental beliefs that are reacted from that continue the patterns?

This can all be very helpful, and was in my life, but what all this questioning ultimately lead to was questioning the definitions of who I had come to believe myself to be. What does the basic identification of myself as primarily, or solely, a body/mind, a person with an identity made up from labeled definitions(thought), create?

And if one does not, for at least a moment, identify with or believe in the
identity of one's self, then what is present? What is here that is uncreated?

We imagine ourselves to be separate individuals with separate stories, but is this true? Is this the full reality? Are not all stories part of the one story of existence? But what is the source of existence? Where does the story of ourselves arise from, appear in?

And are we(all being) separate from the source? Or are we essentially, at our core, source itself?

The hamster wheel effect is the story of a somebody that has to do something to become who/what they have been told they should be to be happy, fulfilled, whole. What, in essence, they already are.

The sense of stuckness, being trapped in a loop of actions that is getting us nowhere and nothing of any real substance, is created, perpetuated, by the overlooking of what is already free and unaffected by any circumstances of life.

> I know that I need to work on a few things in my life (weight, health, etc)
> but I cannot seem to find the inner strength or desire to begin.

When I started to recognize the choices I was making in regards to my diet and overall health it was very helpful. It helped to get clearer about what I really wanted in this life, how I wanted this life to be lived.

Getting healthy, getting clear in life, helps to facilitate a deeper understanding of ourselves.

It is great to see and tell the simple truths of life, but if there is a driving force behind it coming from a self judgement of what you "need" to do, are supposed to do, to be happy and whole, then it is one more whip to keep you on the hampster wheel of illusion.

Nothing wrong with paying attention to health, but if it is fixated on, believed that we can't or won't be happy unless we perfect ourselves in someway, then we deny the simple pleasure of being.

But what if, for just a moment, you let the "...know(ing) that I need to work on a few things in my life..." be? Let yourself be fully present without engaging in the story of what needs to be done to be "better" or something "more"? What is the sense then? What is present?

> I feel like I am missing something but I don't know what it is or where to look.
> Maybe some good soul searching will turn out an answer.

Yes, and how is one to search for the soul? Where is it? How far does one have to go to find it?

This is what the invitation to call off the search is in service to:
to facilitate knowing one's self before any definition of self.

In accepting this invitation, then there is the willingness to stop running in the hampster wheel, regardless of what is believed or feared may happen, to finally know what is here now in the core of all experience.

Could it be this "something" that is sensed to be missed?

Once again, it is paradoxical: this something that is felt to be missing is not a thing, is not anything that can be found in a literal sense, it is too intimate, because "it" is essentially us. Just not the us that has been thought to be who we are. When this is directly known the search is over.

We cannot run from ourself, nor can we find ourself. We cannot hide from ourself or become lost to ourself. We are always here.

There is free will in the ability to choose to believe in the experience of all these things, but what is aware of all the experieneces of runnung, finding, hiding, losing? And ultimately what is aware of the identity of "me" that supposedly all this is happening to?

This is enough for now.

I am grateful for this exchange and give thanks for the willingness to examine and express, to share in this expression.

Namaste, Sky

From Rumi:

We Point to the New Moon
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This time when you and I sit here, two figures
with one soul, we're a garden,
with plants and birdsong moving through us
like rain.
The stars come out. We're out
of ourselves, but collected. We point
to the new moon, it's discipline and slender joy.

We don't listen to stories
full of frustrated anger. We feed
on laughter and tenderness
we hear around us,
when we're together.

And even more incredible, sitting here in Konya,
we're this moment in Khorasan and Iraq.

We have these forms in time,
and another in the elsewhere
that's made of this closeness.

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An offering for clarity's sake.
Peace, Skeye