Question: What is the First Concept?
Charlie: The first concept, which is at the very root of seeking and suffering, is the concept "I". That single root-conceptual "identity" has been endlessly added to, supported and surrounded by an enormous number of additional concepts, such as "I am the body', "I am not you", "I am separated from all else", and so on and so on ad infinitum!
But when challenged, that is when the question is asked at the deepest possible level, "Is this 'I' REAL?" "Is that CONCEPT what I am, what we all are?" "Are we really a whole bunch (billions!) of 'individual I's'?" Or, "Does that 'I' actually exist? If so, where the hell IS it?" Find the separate individual "I", take a picture of it, and e-mail it to me!
This "I concept" arrived out of nowhere (Now Here) at around the age of two or two and a half. Notice how a two year old moans and wails; good reason we call it the "terrible twos!" Because when the "I" - "I Am" - "I Am MEEeeee" is born (and that is all that is ever "born!) the shit hits the fan. As that I is imbued with a sense of being separated from the Whole, thrown out of Paradise, there is ALWAYS (but ONLY always) "much weeping, wiling and gnashing of teeth.
The good news is that this wailing and weeping DOES have a cause: The BELIEF (acceptance despite absence of reason, logic or authentic proof that the "I" concept IS "ME"). And when the cause is rigorously examined it can be removed, ;leaving What-We-Really-ARE, i.e. No Thing AKA Everything. Nowhere and Everywhere.
The core question I prefer is a simple one: Do I actually exist? The absence of an answer shows the Absence that we are ... and the clear seeing then is, "Existence IS, but there is nO I that exists in Truth. Try it and see for yourself.
These are not concepts to add to any belief system; these are pointers BEYOND the so called beginning as in the phrase "In the beginning is the word". What That which ALWAYS IS, That which PRECEDES ANY word? What is right Here Now before the I-concept is cognized (and mistakenly taken for what we are!?)
Look at it. As if your Life depends on it. It DOES depend on it. Taking oneself to be a concept leaves one walking upright but dead. Check your experience: Are you alive an loving what is? AS it is? Or is that I concept convinced "there is something missing for "me"; something is wrong and "I" don't know how to fix it!?
Have a deep look. And feel free to write of you'd like to be supported in this profound and necessary inquiry. Write to non.duality@yahoo.com with any questions or issues that may seem to be in the way of taking the inquiry deeper. and remember, as Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living".
I can vouch for that!
