Shriyoga Blog

Experiencing the Inner Self

Posted on February 18th, 2011

The “Inner Self”?
If you had asked me back in the late 90’s about the “Inner Self” I would most likely immediately jump to some description of my thoughts, perceptions and especially, feelings about whatever was going on in my life.  Everything would be about “me”.
Me, me, me, me, meeeeee!!!
There was no perceptible awareness that there was something other than the thinking me. Even more baffling, there was no real acknowledgment of how narrow the bandwidth of my awareness was.
I remember vividly how my dear cousin, Meadow, would point out the beauty of flowers on our springtime morning hikes in Los Angeles, and how my gaze remain fixed on my climbing feet as I babbled on about whatever was ailing me, breaking my heart or hurting my feelings. All with extra emphasis on “me” and “my”.
(This moment is probably a good one to thank all the friends and family who patiently put up with “me” during this era.)
It is no surprise that the second chapter, “How Do We Experience the Inner Self?”, of Sally Kempton’s new book is especially poignant.
As I described in prior blog entries this year, my road to experiencing myself as the Self, was tumultuous.  There was incredible doubt pushing and asserting that there was nothing but the thinking mind, and that the cultivation of this kind of thinking intelligence was the “way”.
I persisted with my goal to experience the Self, and began, as Sally says, “to look for, to identify, and to identify with [my] essence”.
And, then, one meditation practice in particular gave me the entry point to becoming aware of my own existence.
It is called the madhya.  The midpoint.  The fractional pause between breaths, words, everything… that offers passage to experiencing the Awareness, the Presence… the Self underlying it all.

(An account of the actual morning I learned the madhya meditation from Sally will be posted next week.)

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