From the windmills of my mind.

Advaita Vedanta is quite  challenge to hold on to, the path of non-duality, 'Tat tvam asi' - That Thou Art! To behold that I am the ultimate consciousness, the All Being, the Tatagarbha, God, Allah. I heard it and understood it and how do I keep it? Meditating on it I have been doing as much as I could from way back when practicing it in its various forms but in holding it with determination and acceptance challenges my whole spiritual being. I am still hung up on my doubts and shortcomings perhaps products of long conditioning and habitual tendencies. I am still wearing my personality like a mask to hide my true unborn Buddha Nature, my Divinity, Birth Right: masks of anger and fear, jealousy and greed, masks of always being, needy, wanting, grasping, I wear the masks of pride and preservation, Love and Devotion, I wear the mask of being a father and perhaps not such a great one at that, but I wear a mask all the same; a mask of make believe. Behind this masks there me watching and analyzing, judging and discriminating, making amends and giving tips, this is my mind; this is not who I am, I know this for a fact.

I meditate, I prayed, I rebelled and I transgressed just to make a point, to find the truth, to understand how and why it is all like this. I am weary of coming to the ultimate conclusion of this lifelong experiment about who I am; I fear I do not merit the status of an enlightened being or and awakened mind, but I realize deep within me that I am; being enlightened or awakened is not big deal, it is just like waking up from a deep sleep into a nightmare and waking up from the nightmare into being fully awake to what constitutes my reality. I am afraid to take that leap of faith from being stuck in a rut or a cage into the light of liberation. I cling on with fear to my mentally conditioned perception of who I am for self preservation, for security. I am attached to doctrines and religion, to thoughts and philosophy, I am nailed to the floor not able to move from my present state to a much higher state of consciousness to become a Buddha. I am sitting on my ox while out looking for my ox.I cannot se myself as the mirror reflecting all that is or the clear blue sky where clouds comes and goes, I am the ocean that waves rise and fall when there is wind: I am That, I Am. 

“Be aware of yourself without thinking or looking in the mirror”
― Bert McCoy

“Does a man who is acting on the stage in a female part forget that he is a man? Similarly, we too must play our parts on the stage of life, but we must not identify ourselves with those parts.”
― Ramana Maharshi, Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi