Aham Brahmasmi

How did our culture develop such a prejudice against the Self? I think it's time to stop turning s-e-l-f into a four-letter word.

Why not celebrate divine selfishness? Which isn't self-centered at all, because the Divine Self is so vast, it can find its center in another.

For when I see everything inside me, only then can I "love my neighbor as my self." Yes, even my "enemy." The quality of intimate friendship pervades the cosmos, because nothing is outside my Self.

How could I wish harm on another, compete with another, hoard wealth against another, envy another, bear arms against another? There is no other.

This is the ancient relationship between the mystical and the ethical that Jesus embodied. It is the meaning of Resurrection: the death of the separate ego, and the rising of Christ-Consciousness.

Just so, in the Upanishadic tradition of India, the three "mahavakyas," or "great declarations," express the vast expanse of the true Self: Aham Brahmasmi. Tat Tvam Asi. Om Tat Sat. "I Am the Self. Thou Art That. All This is That."

Now let me drown like a bee in the rose of my own vast golden Presence. 

Photo by Tasha Lepo