Let's do a self-exploration on the question,
What does the word I refer to?
Let's sit comfortably and let's close our eyes.
Relax the body,
Sink into the chair and be still,
Empty out the mind,
Just be.
Take your attention to the sound of these words.
Notice that the sound arises,
Plays for a while and falls away.
What does sound refer to?
Any sound,
What does any sound really refer to?
The mind might say that the sound of these words refers to the voice of the speaker but Look closely,
Is that your direct experience?
Direct experience is devoid of assumptions,
Devoid of logic,
Devoid of analysis and devoid of hypothesis.
When we were innocent babies,
We were devoid of this conditioning,
We were devoid of this learning,
We were devoid of cultural,
Religious and educational colouring.
Our experience was direct experience.
It got conditioned later by words from the mind.
Drop all conditioning,
Drop all words,
Drop all logic,
Drop all assumptions and look closely at your direct experience now.
What does the sound of these words refer to?
In your direct experience,
You do not have proof of the independent existence of a speaker or his voice apart from your own awareness.
You do not know anything outside your own field of awareness.
So instead of focusing on that which you have no proof of,
Let's focus on that which is your direct experience,
Your own awareness.
Take your attention to the perception of this sound arise in your own field of awareness and fall away in your own field of awareness.
The sound arises and falls on a changeless background.
That is all that is your direct experience.
In your direct experience,
There is no proof that the sound is arising from an external source.
What if this was a dream and you were hearing these words in a dream?
How do you know this is not a dream?
Just like in the dream,
You have no proof of the existence of some speaker.
Similarly,
In this waking dream,
Do you have proof of the sound of the words of some speaker external to your own awareness field?
You are that changeless background of awareness in which perception arises and falls.
That which arises from the background and recedes back into the background obviously refers to the background.
The background is its source.
Just like a wave arises in the ocean and recedes back into the ocean,
It is obviously made up of nothing but the ocean.
So it is referring back to the ocean.
It cannot refer to anything outside the ocean.
The wave is the ocean.
The perception is not different from the background.
It is part of that background itself.
It arises in that background.
It plays on the background and it recedes back into the background.
It refers only to that background.
That changeless background is who you are.
You are not the perception of the sound.
How can a perception experienced by you,
That arises in you,
That plays in you,
That recedes back into you,
Refer to something other than you,
The changeless background?
You,
The changeless background,
Are the source from where it is directly experienced as arising from.
You,
The changeless background,
Are the source into which it is directly experienced as receding into.
You are the source,
The origin.
You are its destination.
It is made up of nothing else but you,
The changeless background of awareness.
You are that awareness,
That knowingness,
That consciousness that it is referring to.
Not just this perception of sound,
But every perception of sight,
Sound,
Smell,
Taste,
Refers back to you,
Is made of you.
It arises in you,
Plays in you,
And recedes back into you.
Every sensation is made up of you.
It is experienced by you.
It arises in you,
Plays in you,
And vanishes back into you.
You are the field of consciousness,
Out of which every thought is made.
Every thought arises in you,
The field of consciousness.
It is made up of you,
The field of consciousness.
It plays in you,
The field of consciousness,
And it recedes back into you.
Everything is made up of you.
The word I is simply a thought.
It's called the I-thought.
The I-thought arises in you,
Plays in you,
Vanishes in you.
It is experienced by you.
It is made up of you.
It refers back to you.
You,
The changeless background of awareness,
Consciousness,
Knowingness.
This background does not speak.
This background does not say I.
Background is a quiet,
Calm,
Nothingness.
The word I refers to it,
But when you follow the I,
The I disappears into this background.
I does not really have a permanent existence.
Just like a wave is impermanent and disappears back into the ocean.
Similarly,
The I does not have a permanent existence.
It disappears back into the ocean,
The ocean of consciousness.
There is no I.
There is only the infinite,
The ultimate,
The absolute,
The nothingness.
