You Are Not the Doer

Some people are morning people. They wake up in the morning very fresh, ready to go. Some people are not. They are evening people—they wake up as the day progresses. But it doesn’t matter if you are a morning person or an evening person because, for most people, waking up is the same phenomenon. You just wake up. Now, you did not wake up. To say, “I woke up” is kind of misleading, because really you did not wake up. Waking up happened to you. You didn’t do anything to wake up. You didn’t say to yourself in some dream, “It’s time to wake up now. I have to go to work.” Without your participation in any way, shape, or form, you just wake up.

But a funny thing happens whenever you wake-up—a very funny thing happens: that first gap, that first second, that first moment of waking up, nobody is really there. If you really think about it, if you really pay attention when you wake up, you’ll see no thought is there. It may be a tenth of a second, it may be five seconds, but for however long it lasts, when you first go from sleep to wake, you’re not there. There’s no idea of “I’m a man,” “I’m a woman,” “I’m a human,” “I’m in a bed,” “I’m not in a bed.” Last night, tonight … there’s no measurement. You just are. In reality, that is the spiritual state. Everybody for a split second every day, when they wake up, experiences the more pure, unconfused, spiritual state. And then suddenly, the mind kicks in. Suddenly, you’re a man, you’re a woman, you’re young, you’re old, you’re tired, you’re refreshed, you have to do this, you have to do that. “I have to go here—I have to go there.” Now, nothing wrong with that, except—in that split-second gap, when the mind kicks in, that’s when the illusion begins. All this happens without you doing a thing.

What’s real is: You don’t do any of it.

I’m saying to you, you’re not making it happen, any more than that first second, making yourself breathe. Now, if you can be one of the lucky few who in this lifetime starts to see that, then you’re in the wonderful position of being able to start to let go and relax more and more about everything.

Start to see more and more in everything how you’re not living your life—life is living you. You don’t “have” a life—life has you. You’re the expression of life, in that chair (or wherever you are). You’re the expression of life sitting in that chair, right now. It’s not the other way around, “You’re sitting in the chair.” Life is sitting in the chair, as “you.”

So that’s the beginning of letting go of the illusion that you're doing something. And it’s not easy, because it seems like you’re doing something. It feels real. That’s the way things are wired. It’s hard to fully, in the kinesthetic sense—in every sense—”get it” that you don’t do a thing. It does you.

God is the producer. Existence is the director. But you’re in the play—no question. That’s the inner experience. Even that’s an illusion. But we won’t go there. It’s enough to start to know that you are not doing it.

So if anybody’s panicking a little bit, relax—because nothing has changed. If you start to see it, nothing has changed from how it has always been. It’s good news, because it really, truly means you can relax.

Swami Premodaya is a spiritual teacher, author, and founder of JewelTree Center for Spiritual Growth & Guidance. For a full schedule of events and programs, as well as free guided meditations and a free spiritual wisdom library, visit JewelTreeCenter.org.