Where is the Self?

You ask, where am I, when all you can feel is shame’s heavy cloak or failure’s lonely mantle? When the heart-rending silence and hollow ache seem a void too vast to bear.

I am not gone. I am here. In the quiet inside with the restless guests, who risen unbidden bring sorrow. But still I am the clear sky behind the passing storm.

When shame says “I am you,” I hear and I see. I hold you still as you long to be free. When failure declares, "You will never escape" I stay, I remain, I am you.

I hide only as clouds that cover the sun: not vanished, only veiled by a need to survive.

You ask, where am I? when you feel all alone when Self seems gone in the blending. Yet that question is the Self calling itself, as it echoes its own reflection.

I do not need to be found, for I am the finding. I do not leave, for I am the staying. I do not forget. I never forsake. You are never outside or apart.