I shall describe not the incorrigible self of personality which is hopelessly and permanently riddled with distortion. I instead shall describe that which is at the center and depths of my heart, that which beats in creative rhythms of rest and passion, being and doing.
Who am I? Reduced to its simplest form: I seek the One. This is my response, this is my purpose, my passion, my faith, my service, my reason for existence, my identity. I am he who seeks the One.
Nothing is more true within myself than that which I affirm: “I seek the One”. That is the unchanging rock upon which I stand, that is the North Star within, that is my Polaris of self. In the courses of these successive cycles around the sun, everything else shifts, changes, transforms, and falls away. This remains and grows in strength: I seek the One.
In this seeking of the One, I know not how and when I make so-called progress, I know not how the finite self and the infinite self shall meet within this soul, but I know by what mechanism the process is activated, enabled, and moved upward. The Law of One states that, “Your faculty of will is that which is powerful within you as co-Creator. You cannot ascribe to this faculty too much importance.” Also, “The inner light is that which is your heart of being. Its strength equals your strength of will to seek the light.”
I have discovered that which the Law of One speaks of – the engine of evolution living within me which moves towards the light. It, the coiled serpent, has awoken within me --- I have turned it on; It calls to me --- I invoke it; It pushes me forward --- I utilize it for forward movement. I seek the One.
In this seeking, I can not navigate my way with a skill that sees the road immediately in front of me, for truly I move forward in blindness, seeing nothing ahead and knowing nothing of my true situation. I am helpless in the sense of being able to skillfully plot a course to unity; I don’t possess this knowledge and have no training in cartography. What is within my power to do, what I consciously commit to in this life of “Gary Bean”, is to intensify this will within me: to increase determination, to never relinquish persistence, to purify my desire, to cleanse my heart, to be eternally constant in the attempt.
The intensification of the will is the intensification of a homing beacon, I feel. While I carry and bear the burden, the homing beacon does the bulk of the
My knowing of the ultimate, final, and true direction of will comes through faith; for without faith, the will never leaves the ground. By faith and faith alone I trust that my seeking shall bear fruit; by faith I am utterly convinced that transformation is possible and is happening within me; by faith I know of the rightness of the Path and by faith I know of the existence of the Path itself; by faith I exercise the will to jump off the next precipice (always hoping for the opportunity of that final leap into infinity); by faith my steering is unerring, even when making apparent errors in course; by faith I walk the straight and narrow, even when I meander, propelled forward by the will to seek; by faith I sense the jewels buried underneath the surface of illusion, awaiting my discovery; by faith I understand that, within the incarnation, eternal reality can be realized, union with the One experienced, and intelligent infinity contacted by all who truly seek to know in order to serve. By faith I seek to dance with infinity in the seeming chains of the finite, to experientially know the ground of all being and, from that level, operate within the commonplace affairs of the manifest world. By faith I relax and know that all is well. I seek the One and by faith I know who I am.
I can not lose this seeking, I can not forget this seeking for very long, (how could I turn my back on myself?) No other concern can override this seeking for very long for it is my nature as it is the sun’s nature to shine; from within, it surfaces constantly; I seek to cultivate it, be more conscious of it, and make more room for it. It is that force around which my adult life has been crafted, it is that drive which will shine from me unto the very last breath. I am like the ox marching through the deep mire. I am tired, my load is heavy, but my gaze ahead is unwavering and forward I march, slowly but steadily until I leave the mire. I seek the One.
When I am at
Yet I am not the active, male principle alone. I am also the feminine, I am also the passive. I seek the One with the yin energies flowing through one hand and the yang energies flowing through the other. Thus when I reach, I wait, receptively. When I call out to the Creator, I listen for the Creator. When I activate the will, I remain still. When I rise to the heights of exalted passion, I am patient without attachment to outcome. When I am alert and vigilant, ever watching and observing, I am passive, seemingly inactive. When I view multiplicity, I see with singleness of vision – the One. When I seek freedom in emptiness, I also embrace form – as the mirror does its image. I seek the invisible yet ever perceptible. I seek the One.
I am the will to seek. I have made a decision, I have made a commitment – in this lifetime or the next – I will realize what I seek, I will experience that which I seek, I will become that which I seek. As faith opens up the tight containers of thought to depths and heights unfathomable, I will transcend words, concepts, and my own thinking to drink in the pure mystery from which they, the finite, sprang. I will let go of the personality and gain that which is essential. I will accept that which occurs to me in the daily round of activities, mortifying and sacrificing the self-centered, self-interested, self-willed desires, cravings and aversions, making room for the One through the channel of this self. I seek the One.
By virtue of this seeking, these upper most layers of consciousness with which I am somewhat familiar, this small self which in many conceptual ways is an opaque barrier to the One, will be rendered a transparent doorway through which the One is known because I, like all others, am the doorway through which the Creator is known. I AM literally the door, the gateway exists within. I seek the One.
The small self is my starting point. From there I begin and – standing balanced in self-acceptance and self-knowledge, becoming humble and transparent, aware of both my apparent distortions and total perfection – I will unconditionally love the ever misguided small self and ride the shuttle to what is known as intelligent infinity. This continual dispassionate observation – requiring consistent and disciplined will – makes room for the light of the Logos to shine into and onto that surface personality. I seek the One and learn to love this self formed of and lost within the illusion yet regenerated by grace from the One. I seek the One.
Ultimately, “I” who seeks the One is not “I” as I understand myself but the Creator seeking through me. My seeking IS the creator waking up within me, Spirit becoming aware of itself. This seeking I intensify, this I fuel, and this I return to with concentration. I make it stronger, carefully direct it, and let the seeking go forth from my being to locate and beckon the One who responds to such calls. The Original Desire is waking within me, my heart is beginning to realize that above and beyond all else, it loves and yearns for the One. My heart loves the beauty, the peace, the power, the majesty, the unity in multiplicity, the love, the light, and the process, the day by day restless battle to find rest. It loves the strength and the independence to continue the walk on its own two feet, step by sacred step. Thus does it seek to give itself to the One, to dedicate its life and consecrate all its actions to the One. The innermost core of my heart seeks the beloved, the transcendent, the immanent, the nothingness, the immediate everythingness. I seek the One.
I am the will to seek. As in meditation, so in my daily round of activities. In both modes of activity/being I am the indomitable persistence to return again and again and again and again – gently, compassionately – to return to the center from which the One is sought. Through the distraction, I return to the still point; through the mental mismanagement of the truth, I return to the heart; through the temptations to satisfy the separate self’s endless cravings and aversions, I return gently to the true desire; through the cramped places of unknowing and pain, I return calmly to an even minded hope; through the stress of the workday which rushes my mind into the next moment, I return my focus to the only moment, this one; through the scatterbrained thinking of the everyday self, I return with discipline to single pointed-ness; through the deafening roar of western world noise and distortion, I return again to the quiet. I am the will to persist.
I am he who repeats the name of the nameless over and over in my thoughts, in my mantras, in my actions; ceaselessly I am he who prays to see and to know the face of the faceless. I have and I am the will to seek.
With all my heart I love and seek the One.
Infinity is right here;
Eternity is right now.
I am building a bridge to them,
I am choosing them,
I am that bridge.
I am the will to seek.
