In joy and with lovingkindness, I want to share with everyone  this wonderful passage from the Weekly Words of Wisdom chosen by Lama Surya Das.  We seem to spend so much time worrying (especially as young people) about defining ourselves, only to discover as time passes that thus or such definition doesn't really fit.  Here is what I wish I had known so long ago. Would I have believed it? Who knows? Would I have understood it? Probably not. How much anguish could have been saved, though, if at least the idea had been suggested!

May you be well and happy.

Namaste,
Naomi

Weekly Words of Wisdom chosen by Lama Surya Das
Who Are You . . . Really? "This most basic question, who am I, is the one that is most overlooked. We spend most of our days telling ourselves or the other we're someone important, someone unimportant, someone big, someone little, someone young, someone old. Never truly questioning its most basic assumption. Who are you, really? How do you know that is who you truly are? Is that true, really? When you turn your attention to your question, who am I, perhaps you'll see an entity that has your face and your body. But, who is aware of that entity? Are you the object, or the awareness of the object? The object comes and goes. The parent, the child, the lover, the abandoned one, the enlightened one, the victorious one, the defeated one, these identifications all come and go. The awareness of these identifications is always present. The misidentification of yourself as an object or awareness leads to extreme pleasure or extreme pain, and endless cycle of suffering. When you are willing to stop the misidentification and discover directly and completely that you are the awareness itself and not these impermanent definitions, the search for yourself and thoughts ends. When the question "Who" is followed innocently, purely, all the way back to its source, there is a huge astounding realization. There is no entity there at all. There is only the undefinable, boundless recognition of yourself as inseparable from anything else. You are free, you are whole, you are endless. . . "  - Gangaji, transcribed from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kUtH0DDJorM