From the Editors

   Enza Vita                        Leo Drioli

Adelaide issue 11 & Sydney issue 4

The Ancient One Within

InnerSelf is here to remind us that beyond all the madness that this world and even our own lives sometimes display - there is only one self...one life.

The name InnerSelf refers to the vastness that exists beyond all our thinking and feeling, beyond any state of consciousness in fact. And this eternal vastness is in truth, our divine nature... the Buddhists call this No Self... as it has no qualities as such... the Hindus call it the Self... as it manifests all qualities, all experiences, all form.

The Sufi Mystics speak secretly of the Zapf... the Ancient One Within. And “God is One... God is One...” the Sufis sing in prayer.

The One, is the vastness that exists always here and now, beyond time yet gives birth to time, beyond place yet gives birth to space. This timeless, eternal, vastness, this emptiness is both God and our own true Beingness. This is the InnerSelf.

In India, we greet each other with the word “Namaste”... which means “The One in me honours and connects with the same One in you.” There is only one... only one... only one.

We think ourselves to be separate, individual beings but it’s not so. This is a beautiful spell, the illusion of Maya cast by the power of our minds. As we think, as we emote, as we feel... we fall into a swoon of forgetfulness, of unknowingness. Each time a thought arises, every time we feel a sensation... we fall into the unconscious movement of identification. The eternal vastness lends itself to this ongoing game of hide & seek for the purpose of Self-awakening. Time and again, we fall into our thought/emotion virtual reality world, believing it to be real by the simple process of unconscious identification.

After lifetimes of playing this game of hide & seek, incarnating back and forth in and out of bodies, in and out of dreams, in and out of these mockups we call our lives... we finally catch a glimpse of the Real... the True... the Eternal, we catch our breath, and in that moment see through the veil and everything changes. Now the journey home begins in earnest. This is the time for the InnerSelf... the call to deepen our awakening begins to drive us relentlessly... catching snippets of the One here... the One there... always the One... always the One.

And then the final leg approaches. Are we willing, once and for all, to finally come to a full stop... to end the search by accepting the truth that all that we seek, is already here as our True Self. Are we willing to finally allow for the vastness that we are, to become the constant in our life? Are we willing to allow for the great turning to take place, to surrender to the pull so completely that we simply fall back into this Vastness and be it - forever?

This is the final call. Often much needs to be revealed before we even begin to entertain such a notion. To our little selves, our egos, nothing could be further from our purpose here. As fragmented, little self illusions, we believe ourselves separate, important and meaningful... the truth is we are One, and we even transcend meaning by transcending all possible understanding as we become firmly established as the Eternal Vastness that always is...this is the secret life of  InnerSelf.

This paper is here to remind us of this...to, in whatever way possible lift the veil yet again...to demonstrate through story, through insight, through image, through whatever pointer that’s available that there truly is... Only One...Only One...Only One...

With love Leo & Enza

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