In my experience, peeling away all the conditioned layers of thoughts and beliefs about who I am, peeling away the illusion, in other words may or may not get a person to the visceral experience of I AM that is hoped for.
By that method, a person has to identify and uncover all that is NOT me that I believe IS me and get the AHA viscerally in order for it to make an impression that will last.
For me, this method was useful, yes, but not because it was actually getting me home. It was more like, at best, halfing the distance each time between where I was and where I wanted to be: it would never actually get me home, only closer and closer.
Ultimately, a leap had to be made across the unknown, a leap of faith back into my own sense of inherent worth. At some point I had to leap right into the deepest centre of 'the inside' and see my life from there outwards.
My ground of being shifted from outside of myself looking inwards to find my essence through all the layers of gunk, to a deep-seated resting in all-that-I-am.
The value of the peeling away process was that it worked best when I partnered up with that point of view that is seated deep within.
In other words, I began to form a working relationship with my essential self, whether I knew it or not. The lines of communication opened and I began to trust this new original way of seeing truth.
Ultimately, however, it was not until I CHOSE to redefine myself as that undefinable core of being, made that leap of faith, that I reunited with myself, my heart, my light.
And just to be clear, this is a leap that I must make constantly. There is - for me - no final resting place in identification with ANYTHING.
It is rather a continual choosing of this point of view, this perspective or line of sight, which seems to emanate from deep within, that feels unshakeable in its deep recognition of truth.
This point of view is always right here, always available to me, to you, to anybody;
CHOOSING it from among others that might feel more familiar, safer, more secure, more popular requires a leap, over and over and over.
It is worth it.
ps/smoh
