Inner World

We live under some false assumptions about our inner world. The principal assumption being that something exists there which bears our name, perhaps our ego, our personality, or our self, and that we are that something. However, when we come into our inner world, we do not see the presumed basis for this assumption. We do not see our personality or our ego. We do not see this self, this being, that would be us, that we call by our name.

Yes, we see thoughts. But who and where is the thinker? We feel emotions. But who and where is the one who feels. Continuing to look exposes the emptiness of our assumption of having a self, because that presumed self does not seem to exist. The me that we imagine is cobbled together in our mind from the array of things pointing to it, while the very thing they are supposedly pointing to is not there.

Our thoughts even refer to our self as I. Yet where is this I? Is it any more than an oft-repeated thought? We experience emotions, ready to defend this self of ours. Yet where is that self? The existence of thoughts, emotions, sensations, and memories does not mean there is an owner of all that, nor does all that lumped together, which we call our personality, form an independent entity or self. Each thought is just a thought. Each emotion is just an emotion. They are not who we really are. In this noisy layer of the inner world, our thoughts and emotions continually spin the story of our ego, which is the closest this ego comes to being real.

Nevertheless, beyond our story, we do exist, just not in that assumed, self-centered way. We exist in a way that connects with All. To realize this, we need to dive a little deeper into our inner world. We dive beneath the layer of associative thought trains and reactive emotions. We dive into the inner silence, the inner stillness.

Here, the pointers to our would-be self, our ego, nearly vanish. In this inner silence, there are no forms, there is no self. Yet here we are, here I am, in the stillness, alert and aware. This core of our presence, this silent I, sees and chooses and directs our attention. That is who we are. And its roots go deep, connecting with the I in everyone else, connecting with the creative and benevolent Will behind and within everything. This is not our self-centered ego: a poor, though frequent, substitute for our I.

In this deeper layer, we find and are our real self, our true I. From this deeper layer, we can be wholly present, we can be, we can listen, we can direct our attention, we can choose and act. In this deeper layer, we can find and, with our will, draw the active elements, the energies surrounding us, into us, to build our soul. From this deeper layer, we can, with practice and determination, learn to return to it at will and even live our life from that space, as ourselves. And in this deeper layer, that pure and silent awareness is the same in us as it is in everyone else.

When we sit down for an inner exercise, or to meditate, or for contemplative prayer, our first act can be to return to that quiet space within us. Thoughts occur on the more superficial layer of our inner world. We need not stop them; we just go beneath them to the cognizant stillness. This is an act of will, an act of our I, an act possible for us, to move into our inner world, to move beneath our inner noise. The whole spiritual path involves diving deeper or, put in another way, climbing higher, to the light, and living from there.

This world within each of us is a rich and remarkable place of many layers and textures. If we can reopen our inner vision to look and see what is here in us, to look and be who we are, wonderful doors can open, doors to the reality we all are.

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