When the world is seen as inseparable from the Self

Have you ever wondered what your name really refers to?

Whatever your given name, it doesn't refer to some specific thing in the world. It refers to the whole world.

Whenever you're with someone else, if they're looking at you or talking to you, it can create this sense of being a thing in the world.

But consider this from your own perspective; the firsthand point of view. From that standpoint, what exactly does your name refer to in this world?

Not a single thing. Nothing you can see, or hear, or feel, or think about.

From your own perspective, your name does not refer to anything in the world. Not even what is usually considered the mind. Because that is just the emotions, and the thoughts, and memories, and so on. It is part of the world.

But what your name truly refers to is the entire world. This whole world in front of you.

Look out the window. Look all the way up to the clouds.

Now, try calling the world by your name. Soften your eyes. Say it with love. Say it with wonder.

Do you feel it?

That is the feeling of truth beginning to dawn on you. That things are not as you took them to be. That maybe the struggle is pointless, but in a different way. That it is not required. And that peace is ever so close at hand.

That all the concerns and worries are for an imaginary character that does not really exist in this world. Because your name refers to the entire world.

Consider an earthworm. Deaf, blind, and dumb. There is no character there. But there is a world.

Whatever is being felt and sensed, and so on, it constitutes a world. And at the core of it, the sense of being; the sense of existing. That is the earthworm. An entire world unto itself.

So, we have to look past appearances here. Within the world there are many things which can be named. But consider what your own name refers to.

My given name is Nabeel.

There was a phase when I considered Nabeel to be a character in the world. But there was a questioning. A period of thorough and rigorous self inquiry. Which is the practice of questioning, what am I?

What am I really, as a matter of fact?

I used all means at my disposal. Meditation, contemplation, rational thought. Day and night, the question ruled this mind.

And what I found is that there was nothing in the world that could be called Nabeel. Because, after all, Nabeel is not just a face in the mirror. Or a bundle of thoughts and sensations. And this brain activity that he's supposed to be, I know nothing of it except as this world itself.

All of the sights, and sounds, and sensations, the thinking and the feelings; all of it together constitute this world. The world is nothing without them. Without them, both the world and Nabeel cease to be. So they are synonymous.

Nabeel is synonymous with this world. Not just a body, or persona, or chains of thinking and memories.

Your name is synonymous with what you call, "The World."

But even the world is not truly you. You are another factor entirely.

Whatever your starting position, this questioning leads to the same conclusion. If Nabeel is this body, Nabeel is what is being experienced. If Nabeel is the brain activity, again Nabeel is what is being experienced. If Nabeel is this world, Nabeel is what is being experienced.

But the one that knows Nabeel is not what is being known. Not what is being experienced.

That I, the Self, is the basis of this world. The Self that must remain unobserved, nameless.

You are another factor entirely. Known only through this quality of being aware. Aware-ness. Reality unto Itself.

What your given name refers to, is not a flawed character that needs to be fixed and enlightened and made happy. It refers to the entire world. This world before You, that You make possible.

It is not separate to You. Cannot exist without You. It is a reflection of your own true face.