Meditation, Awareness and Identification

When meditation first started feeling useful, I began to recognize that there exists something behind my thoughts and feelings. Through this I learned that I am not my thoughts; I am not my feelings. But what am I?

I must be the awareness. I must be that which lies behind the thoughts and feelings. This did not help.

Now, when I was stuck in an undesirable emotional state I became frustrated. 'I know I am not this feeling. I am that which lies behind it but why don't I feel that way?' Most of the time this revelation was fine and could work well, but other times it made me feel trapped by my own thoughts and emotions. Rather than identify with those thoughts and emotions, I identified with the awareness experiencing them, now they were external to me; when they were unfavorable, they became my prison.

Yesterday I realized that I am not the awareness either. But more importantly, I am not separate from my emotions or my thoughts or my awareness. With this idea, I seek to embrace them. As Ram Dass would say 'Dig It! Woah, check out that radical self-pity, it's so exquisite. Maybe it's a new species of anxiety! Yeah!'

If I am any thing, I am no thing. If I am no thing, I am every thing.