In God Makes the Rivers to Flow; An Anthology of the World’s Sacred Poetry & Prose, Eknath Easwaran has included a selection from the Isha Upanishad and entitled it “The Inner Ruler.”  I have written a series of poem-like reflections based on this selection.  This is the third one in the series.

Ourselves and the Self

The Self is one.  Ever still, the Self is
Swifter than thought, swifter than the senses.
Though motionless, he outruns all pursuit.
Without the Self, never could life exist.
—from “The Inner Ruler” in the Isha Upanishad

We have been conditioned into thinking we are our bodies, but we are not our bodies.  We are one with our bodies, yet they are of denser matter than our very selves.

There is a Self beyond ourselves.  Some would call it the Highest Self.  Some would call it God.  And that Self is our True Self, the one creator, the holy being that is All Being.

We are slow.  The Self is fast.  It is existence at a vibration faster than thought.  It is existence that is changeless.

We change, but beneath and beyond our changing is a Self that just Is, a Self that stays, a Self we cannot chase but which can be found within.  It is all that we long for, our one and only pure desire.

We cannot be separated from the Self, yet we think it is out of our reach.

When we love something or someone, we are expressing that Self, and we are rising toward the Self.  When we quiet our minds, we touch the Self.  When we imagine the beginning, we get a taste of the Self.

Before we were born, we were one with the Self.  When we die, we dissolve into the Self.

We are drops of the Self interacting with other drops of the Self.

When we experience ourselves as the Self, we forget ourselves.  When we forget ourselves, we discover our True Nature, All-Love, Pure Being.

If there were no Self, there would be nothing.  The Self is everything and cannot not exist.

We are free only when we discover the Self.