Our self is the closest presence to our self. So close, it is not even 'close'. Our self is at our self. That's where we at!
There is only one presence here called 'I', and this presence is no distance from itself. If we ask our self, 'am I present?' The answer comes immediately, with absolute certainty, 'yes, I am present.' That immediate availability of our self to itself announces the fact of our ever-presence. We are already at our self, knowing our self, before the question of being present arises.
Being present is the most directly accessible knowing there is. Who is it that knows that I am present? It is I that knows that I am. Are these two different and separate 'I's in me? One that knows and one that is known? No. The I that knows is the I that is known. One self, knowing itself.
There are not two selves in me; a higher self and a lower self, a true self and an egoic self, an impersonal self and a personal self. There is only one simple, ordinary, familiar presence that we call 'I.' That one self is our reality. To claim there is such a thing as a higher or lower self, or any dualistic conception of distinct selves, is to give credence to the imagination, for that is all these conceptions are; imaginary superimpositions upon the reality of our one present self.
This one self is inseparable from itself. I am I. Or, to refine the formulation even more succinctly, we could simply say, 'I.' That one symbol 'I' represents the irreducible oneness of our self. The beauty of our self is that its ever-present oneness with itself is the true experience of love. That is what love is; not experiencing an 'other'. Our self is never an 'other' to itself. Our self is always, solely itself, love itself.
We are this love, this one self, irrespective of the changing conditions of experience. Thoughts come and go, sensations come and go, sense perceptions come and go. However, throughout all these apparent changes - in fact, throughout all change there is to perceive - our self remains immutably present and unchanged. We know and experience the flow of change from our presence of absolute stillness, from the love that we are.
The entire panorama of objective experience is flowing by this ever-here, ever-stable presence of our self, like the water of the river flows over the solid bedrock. Our presence is the ever-still bedrock upon which the fluidity of thoughts, sensations and sense perceptions flow.
All the waves of this flow can and do disappear from our experience, moment to moment, yet our self remains present, knowing itself. These waves are the conditions of the flow of experience. The fact that these conditions all transform and disappear, whilst our self remains as it is, intact and unchanged, shows that our self is independent of these conditions. Being independent of apparent conditions is what unconditionality is. Our self is unconditionally itself, that is, unconditionally love itself. Love is what we are, not what we may experience from time to time if the conditions of experience are favourable.
This affirmation of our self being unconditional love itself is not a neat philosophical theory based upon nimble intellectualising, referencing a nebulous domain of abstraction, utterly impractical in the face of daily experience. This affirmation is derived from the truth of direct experience, and thusly is perfectly practical in meeting the unfolding of our daily experience. Our self, in its essence, is experienced unequivocally as unconditional love, and as the experiencing of our self meets the experiencing of everything, the love that is our nature unavoidably influences our meeting with everything.
The membrane between our self and everything that exists is totally porous and transparent. In fact, if we look closely, we don’t find a membrane. There is no boundary or separation between our self and everything that exists.
Just by experiencing existence itself, we are silently confirming our unity with all there is to existence, to all that exists. Everything is connected. We could not experience something that was absolutely separate from our self. That thing would not be accessible, for it would not be in contact with us. To experience the tree, table, computer, people, animals and universe at large is to experience a connection between all of these elements and a connection with our self.
The totality of what is here, now, is united by our experiencing of it. And if we look for a boundary between the self that experiences and the ‘it’ that is experienced, we don’t find any. We just find pure, seamless experiencing, the very substance we are, and is, as we have discovered, the brilliant light of unconditional love itself.
Our love pervades all that is.
Our love is the substance of all that is.
That is all we know, as the very knowing that knows.
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