Who was born?

Today is the anniversary of the day I heard I was born.  Why do I phrase it that way? Well, when I investigate what I had always thought to be true, that I am so and so, and was born on such and such a date, I cannot truly say that it happened.  I don’t remember it, and even if I did, would that make it so?  The only proof I’ve had is word of mouth.  My mother says she was there and it happened.  But even when she utters those words, are they not based on a memory…albeit a pretty old one? Wouldn’t at this moment every thought be from memory?  In this moment, can I know mentally anything that isn’t past or future related? 

What’s it to me that “I was born”? What happens when I go from right here to there (into the past) with that thought? Where am ‘I,’ then?  Perhaps I go into a thought of the future, and imagine that if I was born I will surely die.  What happens to this present moment, when THAT thought intrudes upon it?

The beauty of inquiry is that one can travel into the depths leaving behind the many carcasses of  identity, shedding them like pieces of clothing, as who I think myself to be moves inward toward the naked truth.  Without these clothes, these carcasses of identity, who am I?  Do ‘I’ exist at all?  Understandably this can be quite a terrifying experiment, because all we think we are or have, is our existence as this person.

Without an ‘I’ (as a person) to identify with, do I exist?  There isn’t an answer to this question.  It is a question that collapses in on itself with inquiry.  And in the pure thoughtless moment that arises, there is only clear unadulterated reality.  But without investigation this is just another story told, to be believed…or not.  Each of us, if we are inclined to travel this road of inquiry, do so alone…perhaps inspired by the words and experience of our teachers, but alone just the same.

I am not aware of living in that awareness, except in a moment.  But it has shown me that it is, regardless of whether I am ‘aware’ of it or not.  It is not dependent on my recognition of its existence.  It is a constant.  It is my true nature.  It is always present, waiting to be ‘known.’