Reflection 118

Welcome!


Your True Face

A friend of mine sends out a daily quotation by email – he calls it Peter’s Pearls. Often he quotes spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle or Gangaji. The quotation at the bottom of the page, from Gangaji’s The Diamond In Your Pocket, appeared one day. Gangaji writes about who we really are - our "true face", which "is actually no face at all, with no gender, no agenda…"

Where do you find your true identity, this wonderful, gender-free "no face" of yours – this precious nothing that is "full, whole, infinite, in everything, everywhere?"

The Pointing Experiment shows you precisely where your no face is. You literally point at it! Do the experiment and there it is. Or rather, here it is! Gangaji claims you don’t need years of spiritual practice to find this no-face of yours. Is that true? Find out for yourself. Just as you are, point back at where others see your face and look. Do you see your face there? Of course not. What do you see there? Nothing? Exactly. No face! So, that was fast, wasn't it. Didn't take ten years. What, less than ten seconds?

What a wonderful no face you have - crystal clear, awake and everywhere! And open to and filled by every face in the world. You trade your imagined face here for real faces there, and so you become others. Seeing your no face - such a humble thing to do, so private, so unpromising - yet it leads to the most profound place. Dying the deepest death, you are reborn as all. Losing your head, you find your true heart. The deep, wide, empty heart of the One, full to overflowing with all the world. Falling into the abyss of your nothingness, you are raised to wonder.

Self-evidently, as Gangaji points out, seeing your no-face, your true identity, has nothing to do with what kind of person you are. Look there in the mirror and you see your face – you see there the person you are. That's your appearance. But look here, this side of the mirror, and you see your no-face. This is your real identity and you're not human. Face there to space here. What could be simpler? Your mirror image, your self-image, your body image, your public image, any images you have of yourself, or that others have of you, so necessary for living in society, appear there, in the mirror, in others, in consciousness. They do not define you here. Here you remain faceless, free of image, free of body, free of mind, free of identity. Free. You are the mysterious one. Empty for the world, you are the fertile void, the nothing that becomes everything, the one Consciousness awake to itself and all it contains - which is the All. Here - right where you are! - is the Self-illuminating Light, the Light that lights up the world, light upon light upon light. Timeless and full of time, the unborn, undying source of all, the beginning, the middle and the end - this is who you are. Congratulations!

How fortunate that one's true face turns out to be so accessible, no matter what kind of person you are, or how much meditation you've done, or anything. Your True Self has been so kind and generous, gracefully not hiding that which is most precious, most useful. Your Original Face, the Face you've always had, your Secret Face - is visible! This, more than anything in the world, is obvious. This alone is utterly, absolutely, totally, always available.

Warm regards
from this visible no face which,
plain and unremarkable as it is,
gives rise to the world!

P.S. See this exchange between Gangaji and a student.


Quotation from The Diamond In Your Pocket by Gangaji

The truth is, you really are nothing, but this nothing is full, whole, infinite, in everything, everywhere. This nothing is consciousness itself. It is already whole, complete, and fulfilled. This is the amazing irony. What you are running from and what you are searching for are the same!

I know you must experience at least a hint or an echo of the boundless peace that is present. This is an echo of your true identity, which is always present.

However many strategies of the mind arise -- to do, to keep, to hide, to protect, or to defend -- this boundless peace is always present, and it is your true refuge. This is, in fact, your true face. You do not need years of spiritual practice to find your true face, because it is always present.

Nor do you need to be a better person to find your true face. Right now, exactly where you are, whoever you imagine yourself to be, your true face is shining. But it is actually no face at all, with no gender, no agenda. It is simply shining as it is, shining as shiningness.

Please send your comments to Richard

Peter’s Pearls


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