What Remained when I Was Gone

Hi. Thank you for being here with me.

I haven’t sat for a long-form writing in months because realizations, for me, come in stages, and I always prefer to communicate from a fully stirred, embodied place. Today feels like that.

I am writing in parts. Read each part as slowly as you can, stop as many times as you need, and if nothing makes sense right now, drop it. Maybe you’ll need to come back to it one day.

The reason I chose to share this with anyone who finds resonance with it is simple: a part of me wants to give it a home, or a breadcrumb for future reference. I don’t know. I will serve whatever reason chose to bring this out now. Dive in.

First Part: The journey of seeking dissolved itself into the Void

I will never forget this day, the day I wasn’t expecting anything. A day like any other.

Before this particular morning, there was a specific texture to my days that I had been noticing. On my walks every morning, I felt a warm sensation and a dripping-honey texture in my belly. I love walking through cozy, warm-lit apartments and medieval narrow streets; it always gives me a good feeling inside.

I walked every day. And one morning, after my walk, as I always do, I sat in my favorite corner of the sofa… two pillows behind my back, my soft burgundy blanket, and closed my eyes.

I immediately dropped into the vast space I had been feeling for days. But on this particular morning, that vast space was so still. Unmoved, unchanged, unnamed. Just is-ness.

As I became that awareness itself, I dissolved into it and became nobody.

I literally saw the whole of who “I am” shatter into little star-like pieces and dissolve into nothingness. I was gone.

After some moments of simply being, words began to form in my awareness. Here they are:

Everything you put after “I” is an identification, a movement that rises after “I” has arisen from its pure state. Before “I” rises, or behind “I,” there is a pure awareness that is unmoved, unchanged, unnamed, untouched. It is from that pure awareness, that is-ness, that every “I am” arises. And no “I am” affects this pure awareness. Stay with me….

In the same way waves rise and fall on the surface of the ocean, each movement happens on its own without changing the ocean; this is the closest metaphor I can find.

The words kept coming:

“I” is the consciousness of pure awareness. It is not the pure seat itself, but it is the closest awareness of it. If I use words like pure awareness, pure is-ness, God, the seat, spirit, presence, source, know that I am pointing to the same thing. Let’s continue….

When pure consciousness realizes itself as “I,” it gives form to its image… the soul. It reflects its pure reflection in soul-form, which is your and my eternal self emerging from the seat.

Imagine it like this: pure awareness is your natural scent. The soul is the fragrance you wear on top of that scent. Both are you. The difference is that God has realized itself through a particular, unique lens…. your soul, my soul.

Then there is the human lens, which comes with endless “I ams” emerging from both pure is-ness and human conditioning, all as part of its own experience.

The difference is that the “I am” emerging through human conditioning carries a texture of forgetfulness. That forgetfulness obscures the source of “I” as our origin.

And the human journey becomes a long quest of remembering the origin “I” and its seat. Along the way, we temporarily become endless “I ams,” stopping again and again at “I,” without remembering the pure seat behind it, the origin that is independent of anything.

The endless appetite of the human body circles truth through finite destinations that eventually feed only ignorance.

I hesitated for months to put this into words because to do so, you must step into “somebody” to reflect it. I stayed in the purity of it for a long time until I felt called to write about it. It is diluted through language, but let’s continue.

Let me describe the texture of the seat in my body, psyche, mental, and emotional fields as they are now.

The word that came was satisfied.

From a human perspective, I was surprised by its ordinariness. You become unimpressed by the human tendency to seek extraordinariness.

The only work that remains is training the mental and emotional bodies to recognize this truth, and training the physical body to move as pure is-ness in form.

This does not happen through intellect. It happens when innate intelligence comes online.

Intellect gives direction in the 3D world. It gives this truth legs in human reality. When intellect is placed above this truth, suffering is inevitable.

When form rises from this truth, movement or any activity becomes a way of walking in the world as presence. Presence has legs.

And that, my friend, is pure expression: “I” emerging from the seat.

Part Two: The embodiment of this truth

I want to name this clearly: even as I articulate this, refinement and embodiment will continue. Words may keep finding me.

There is also a subtle tendency of the mind to turn this realization into a label, a new identity, a spiritual project with boxes to tick. This is worth watching.

I should also say this: realization often comes when you are not looking for it. No one teaches you this. It may happen because you are open enough or surrendered enough, but it cannot be forced.

Trying to manufacture it is a mind trick disguised as truth. Just stay on the journey. That’s it.

The realization of the seat unifies all human experience. This is true liberation.

When you recognize that every movement, every expression, whether labeled positive or negative, rises from the same source as “I,” you realize that you are not only part of everything.

You are it. Nothing and no one is separate.

However, when life reflects itself to you, you no longer shy away from experiences, whether it lights you up or pains you. Expression is no longer the point of identification. Origin is.

This is liberation.

Expression continues, but identification dissolves because the body has remembered its true home. Even if this truth is temporarily forgotten, returning is effortless. Once remembered, there is no going back; only integration, refinement, and fine-tuning remain.

Form still emerges. Presence still chooses how to walk the earth through your body. Work happens, life happens, but you no longer confuse form with identity.

Form is pure is-ness moving temporarily.

“You” are pure awareness resting as it is.

Let me leave you with this: I will find you again soon, with more embodiment from this truth.