The I Divine

The practice must lead the person to the point where "the higher will is clothed in their will, and not only that their will is clothed in the higher will." [1]

"Humans can make it possible for God to be God." [2]

"I am nothing unless I am God's Will." [3]

Who am I? What is this universe I am in? What is my true relationship to this universe? These questions cannot be separated, and all come down to the same question, even though the first seems to be the domain of psychology and spirituality, the second the domain of physics, and the third the domain of biology, ethics, and politics. There is one reality behind it all. In a word, it is the reality of Will.

Is the universe made of parts, or is it one whole? If it is one whole, then how are the apparent parts, how am I, related to the whole?

Who am I? I am my will. I am not my body. I am not my mind. I am not my emotions. I am not my consciousness, this conscious energy medium in which I find myself. Nor am I the medium of my sensory awareness, the sensitive energy. Who I am is the one who receives what these media of awareness bring to me. I am the one who directs my attention, who focuses or broadens the media of awareness. When I come into myself as deeply as possible, that is who I find that I am: my will, that force in me that sees what I see and does what I do, that force in me that can choose, decide, and direct my instruments, direct my body, my thoughts, and my emotions. Even when I choose passivity and do not direct my thoughts or emotions, letting them roam, react, and ruminate automatically on their own, I still am this will, this capacity to choose, this one who sees, this one who is.

My will is not in time and space like my body, mind, or emotions. It is in another dimension, another domain. It is behind all that I experience. It is my I that is the one who experiences what I experience. Right now, you are looking at or listening to these words. Who is doing that? That one in you is right here. It is not elusive, though you cannot examine it, for it is your I that does the examining and cannot look at itself. Your I can look at your thoughts, emotions, body, and sensory perceptions, but cannot look at itself.

However, you can be your I, your will. You are that. To learn to be your I, to be who you truly are, matters deeply, because that is your connection with the oneness on all levels, with other people, and with this great world. Everything has will in it. Even inanimate objects have the will to be what they are. The will that is in each of us, the will that is in everything, arises from the same source, the One Divine Will that enters everything everywhere.

When you see another person, any person, regardless of the degree to which they are in touch with themselves, with their I, with their own singular, unique will, and regardless of how far they are from that, what you are seeing is the face of God, the source of all will. That dynamism, that spark of aliveness you see in that person is the action of the Sacred. This way of seeing others can awaken a boundless respect in us, even love.

For this week, be your will, and recognize the will in others, from the same source of will as your own.

[1] From an anonymous early Kabbalist quoted in The Heart and the Fountain by Joseph Dan, 2002, page 119.

[2] Hasan Shushud, quoted by J.G. Bennett in his 1971 Postscript to Witness.

[3] From J.G. Bennett's Cosmic Consciousness talk at Beshara.

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