The Masks I Wear and the Self I Seek Posted 19 November 2019 (Revisited

I am a man of a thousand faces, someone once said of me, and I agree, even as I understand what he meant was more of my moods and character that change every moment in time. I  wear so many roles and habits in my life that I have lost touch with who I truly am.

 

The Masks I Wear and the Self I Seek

Posted 19 November 2019 (Revisited)

After a short hiatus, I return to this keyboard with no clear direction—only the need to let my mind wander and my fingers play. A white kitten sleeps in my lap, nestled in my sarong, anchoring me in stillness. I cannot move without disturbing her, and so I choose to write, letting the stillness speak.

Someone once called me “a man of a thousand faces,” and I understood what they meant. Moods, identities, roles—I have worn them all. Father, artist, friend, rebel, seeker, mystic. In wearing so many faces, I sometimes lose sight of the one behind them all.

That is why, earlier in my life, I began to ask: Who am I?
Not in the superficial sense, but with the earnestness of one peeling back the layers of self—like an onion, removing one veil after another, hoping to find the core.

These masks I wear are not always bad. They can be protective, like the dark visors worn by riot police or the sunglasses of patrolmen hiding intent. They can be shields in a world of acid rains. But over time, they harden. They become habits. They begin to wear me.

 

Wearing masks is an art. You play the part long enough, and you begin to believe you are the part. Anger, fear, pride, love, devotion—they each come with a costume. And beneath them, something eternal watches, analyzes, judges, yearns.

I meditate, I pray, I rebel, I transgress. I test every boundary in search of truth. The Advaita Vedanta teaching Tat Tvam Asi—“That Thou Art”—echoes in my soul. I know what it means. I know that I am the undivided consciousness, the unborn Buddha Nature, the ocean upon which the waves rise and fall.

But knowing is not always embodying.

I still hesitate at the threshold. I still cling to ideas, doctrines, and the safety of my conditioning. I still wear masks for love, for survival, for dignity. I still doubt. I still long. And I still look for myself while sitting on my own ox.

Enlightenment, I’ve come to see, is not some grand achievement. It’s like waking up from sleep into a nightmare—and then from the nightmare into clarity. It is not a reward but a return. And even so, I am afraid of the leap.

Yet something within keeps whispering:
I am That. I Am.

Not the thoughts, not the mirror, not the masks.
Just the clear sky.
Just the ocean.
Just the being behind all becoming.

“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

 

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