I have a practice in which I say to myself,
I am loving awareness. To begin, I focus my attention in the middle of my
chest, on the heart-mind. I may take a few deep breaths into my diaphragm to
help me identify with it. I breathe in love and breathe out love. I watch all
of the thoughts that create the stuff of my mind, and I love everything, love
everything I can be aware of. I just love, just love, just love.
I love you. No
matter how rotten you are, I love you because you are part of the manifestation
of God. In that heart-mind I’m not Richard Alpert, I’m not Ram Dass—those are
both roles. I look at those roles from that deeper “I.” In the heart-mind I’m
not identified with my roles. They’re like costumes or uniforms hanging in a
closet. “I am a reader,” “I am a father,” “I am a yogi,” “I am a man,” “I am a
driver”—those are all roles.
All I am is
loving awareness. I am loving awareness. It means that wherever I look,
anything that touches my awareness will be loved by me. That loving awareness
is the most fundamental “I.” Loving awareness witnesses the incarnation from a
plane of consciousness different from the plane that we live on as egos, though
it completely contains and interpenetrates everyday experience.
When I wake up
in the morning, I’m aware of the air, the fan on my ceiling, I’ve got to love
them. I am loving awareness. But if I’m an ego, I’m judging everything as it
relates to my own survival. The air might give me a cold that will turn into
pneumonia. I’m always afraid of something in the world that I have to defend
myself against. If I’m identified with my ego, the ego is frightened silly,
because the ego knows that it’s going to end at death. But if I merge with
love, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Love neutralizes fear.
Awareness and
love, loving awareness, is the soul. This practice of I am loving awareness
turns you inward toward the soul. If you