Who are you? It's a big question, an existential question, and we all ask it. We ask it when we are young children, we ask it when we are adolescents, and we ask it when we are grown adults, We ask it throughout our life, and we don't stop asking it until we find a satisfactory answer. When we are happy with the answer we've found, we stop asking and we only start up again if something happens to make us unsatisfied to the point where we question once again.
On this planet we are generally offered only two answers to the question "Who am I?" When we ask we are told the science answer or the church answer. In a nutshell, the science answer is that we are evolving apes and we need to struggle, strive, and compete to reach a "higher" level of existence; the church answer is that we are all fallen angels and we need to work/prove our worth/clear karma in order to redeem ourselves. People generally pick one or the other of these answers, sometimes bouncing between the two as their dissatisfaction gets the better of them, and then they live their lives until they die.
There is, however, and alternative. This alternative is not common, but it is available for your consideration. This alternative is not provided by science or church, it is provided by mystics, by people like myself, who have had spiritual experiences, and who have thus realized that there is more to it than the priests and the scientists would like to admit. We are, as I would say, not broken down angels in need of extensive cosmic repair nor are we evolving apes ascending toward some distant evolutionary goal. We are, in the right here and the right now, glorious sparks of incarnated consciousness, glorious sparks of divinity. It our purpose and the only worthwhile goal of life to a full realization of this Truth. But don't take my word for it. Below is a list of quotes from some of this world's most famous mystics. As even a perfunctory perusal will reveal, they all say exactly the same thing. We/You are Light; We/You are Golden; We/You are God.
Terry Pratchett
Amy Lee
I gazed upon [al-Lah] with the eye of truth and said to Him: "Who is this?" He said, "This is neither I nor other than I. There is no God but I."
Abu Yizad Bistami
You are a distinct portion of the essence of God in yourself. Why then, are you ignorant of your noble birth? Why do you not consider whence you came? Why do you not remember when you are eating, who you are who eat; and whom you feed; do you not know that it is the divine you feed; the divine you exercise? You carry a God about within you.
Epictetus
Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine and mine the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me. What do you ask then and seek, my soul? Yours is all of this and all is for you. Do not engage yourself in something less, nor pay heed to the crumbs which fall from your Father's table. Go forth and exult in your Glory! Hide yourself in It and rejoice and you will obtain the deepest desires of your heart.
St John of the Cross
Father rejoice with me, I have become God... When I looked into myself, I saw God within me and everything he has ever created in heaven and earth... I am established in the pure Godhead, in which there never was form or image.
Sister Catherine Treatise
I am he Whom I love, and He whom I love is I: We are two spirits dwelling in one body. If thou seeist me, thou seest Him, And if thou seest Him, thou seest us both.
Hallaj Husain ibn Mansure
My experience tells me that the Kingdom of God is within us, and that we can realize it not by saying Lord, Lord, but by doing His will and His work. If therefore, we wait for the Kingdom to come as something coming from outside, we shall be sadly mistaken
Ghandi
Behold but One in all things; it is the second that leads you astray. Benares is to the East, Mecca to the West; but explore your own heart, for there are both Rama and Allah
Saint Kabir
Psalm 82:5-6 It is written that "Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High."
John 10:34 Is it not written in your law, "I have said you are gods."
Mathew 18:17-18 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Paul 14: 10 Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?
Corinthians 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Jesus in the Oxyrhynchus Sayings: And the Kingdom of heaven is within you and whosoever knoweth himself shall find it. And, having found it, ye shall know yourselves that ye are sons and heirs of the Father, the Almighty, and shall know yourselves that ye are in God and God in you. And ye are the City of God.
Jesus Christ
जाति नीति कुल गोत्र दूरगं
नाम रूप गुण दोष वर्जितम् |
देश काल विषया तिवर्ति यद्
ब्रह्म तत्त्वमसि भाव यात्मनि ||२५४||
Beyond caste, creed, family or lineage,
That which is without name and form, beyond merit and demerit,
That which is beyond space, time, and sense-objects,
You are that, God himself; Meditate this within yourself.
Vivekachudamani
He who knows his self knows God.
Muhammad
I am you; you are me You are the waves; I am the ocean. Know this and be free; be divine.
Sri Sathya Sai Baba
My Me is God, nor do I recognize any other Me except my God himself.
St Catherine of Genoa
The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hardworking farmer, it will thrive and grow up to be God, whose seed it is; and accordingly, its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God's seed into God. God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself, in so far as you are a created being and let God be God in you.
Meister Eckhart
