Unveiling the Essence of Healing, Awareness, and Self-Love
Who Are You?
How well do you truly know yourself? Do you understand who and what you are, or are you only familiar with fragments of yourself—fragments shaped by this incarnation and filtered through your material understanding of time and space? The truth is, you probably have no idea who you really are.
The human being you identify with—your sense of self and the identity you think you know—isn’t truly you. The problem is, you can’t fully remember your true essence, at least not the real you. Occasionally, throughout your life, you may catch glimpses of it. But for the most part, your true self remains unrecognized or forgotten. In its place, you've built an identity— a facade— that has been constructed from birth for comfort and survival. This identity is who you think you are. Its foundation is rooted in our animalistic side—or our "human" side.
To understand how deeply this identity is embedded, we need to reflect on all aspects of daily existence, from thought to action, and become aware of how we cater to it daily. For example, you tie your shoes the way you like them tied. You eat foods the way you prefer. You sleep on the side of your body that feels most comfortable. Is it two gulps or three when you unconsciously grab a glass of water during a meal? The preferred clothing, the seat height in your car, the music you listen to, the friends you choose, your entertainment preferences—on and on.
Your entire existence, this “identity,” consists of your personal preferences and attachments. So much so that any disturbance to this finely-tuned instrument often causes anxiety, or in some cases, suffering—suffering created by the desire to restore your "instrument" to its preferred state.
To revisit the question: How well do you really know yourself? You might answer, “I know everything about myself—my experiences, my preferences, everything.” But that isn’t the real you. It’s more of a material expression—a tool—that allows the real you to navigate this experience called life.
The Illusion of Self
When we reflect on the question of who we are, we often look to the past. We recall who we “were” at certain points in our lives, relying on the sum of our human experiences and emotions to define ourselves. But the person you think you were never truly existed. Your perception of who you are and who you were is inaccurate. The real you is not defined by your preferences or experiences; rather, it is the awareness of those preferences and experiences.
To know yourself is to connect with the essence within you—eternal awareness, not the human existence that has been catered to since birth. Time, space, and the past are illusions. What you think you perceive in them never truly existed because your human material self, not your spiritual self, defined them. Read that again. Recognizing this truth is the first step toward enlightenment.
The Illusion of Time
It is always now. Right now. There has never been a past, nor will there ever be a future, just “right now.” Existence is perpetually in the “right now.” To understand “right now” is to recognize the constant, flowing river of existence. You were never something in the past because your existence, like a river, is always moving, changing, and evolving. To pick a singular point for identification purposes is impossible. This limitation lies in your human perception, which cannot fully comprehend this fluidity. Because of this, we create an illusion that prevents you from knowing who you really are. The human “you” only knows the conditions and circumstances that surround you within this poorly defined illusion of identity.
The Thief of Joy
Human beings excel at comparison. If there’s one thing we’ve mastered, it’s the ability to look at something and critique it, imagining how it could be better, faster, more, less, or different. What we fail to realize is that change occurs regardless of comparison, human opinion, or desire. Like a river, your existence continuously flows from a divine origin. You are the river. Trying to compare points in a body of moving water is futile, and yet it creates suffering through comparison.
Building the illusion of identity and pretending that this is who you are is akin to standing in an ocean and commanding the waves to flow more gently to the left or right. The ocean’s nature is beyond our control, and it’s never the same from one moment to the next. This constant fluidity is immeasurable—just like you.
To truly know yourself is to recognize that you are fluid, never the same as you perceive yourself to be in the past. You may appear different in your mind, but the essence of existence is always in the now. The idea of who or what you were is the illusion of the past, a fleeting point in a moving divine river that cannot be measured. The illusion of that identity is simply a tool or lesson to help you understand who you are in the “right now.” Comparison only creates suffering based on an illusion.
Know Oneself to Heal
Suffering is often rooted in comparison—the illusion of the identity of who we were and the illusion of who we think we are right now. We define healing as a return to a perceived past state: "I was healthy; now I am not. I want to heal and return to what I was." But at which point in the continuously flowing river of your existence are you trying to return to? That point is fluid, meaning it can’t be a fixed point at all. By comparing your current state to an idealized version of the past, you unknowingly create your own suffering.
To understand healing, you must first understand what you are. You are not the same as you were a moment ago. You are constantly evolving, growing, learning, and remembering. Healing begins when you stop comparing your present self to an illusion of the past. For example, if you define yourself as sick based on such comparisons, true healing will elude you. If you identify as healing, you’re halfway there. If you identify as healed, you’re even closer. But if you transcend these defining labels entirely, you understand that sickness, injury, or struggle are merely experiences in your incarnation, experienced by your divine self through your human identity, right now.
In this sense, “healing” is better understood as being the best version of you right now, without comparison. What is there to heal? Compared to what? The choice is to love yourself fully, without judgment, in the “right now,” giving yourself the freedom to experience the best existence possible, in this moment. That is an enlightened understanding. That understanding is where the magic happens. That’s where freedom from definition grants you the miracle you’ve been seeking.
Self-Love: The Key to Freedom
Self-love is understanding that you may not fully know who you are, and that’s okay. It is granting yourself the grace and compassion to navigate the illusions of identity and time without judgment. Self-love is recognizing that you are not defined by your circumstances, whether they involve sickness, struggle, or perceived imperfection.
Self-love means releasing the need to compare yourself to anyone or anything, including your perceived past self. It is the patience to embrace the present moment, knowing that you are whole as you are, right now. You have never been less. By loving yourself fully in this “right now,” you free yourself from the illusions of definition and open the door to transformation.
Conclusion
Beyond the illusion is where enlightenment and a deeper understanding of healing reside. It is where you will find the real you. Embrace the flowing river of your existence and the infinite “right now.” In doing so, you may come to see that there is nothing to heal because you were never broken. Your journey is not about returning to an imagined state of perfection but about awakening to the perfection that already exists within you. Free yourself, and let the magic happen.