Existence as Essence

Third Eye Integration is just getting started.  I have a lot of people in my life who believe in the vision of connection and collaboration that I have expressed to them, and they want to manifest with this organization.  And what is that vision?  I’ll get to that….

          This is the thing - So many people are not living authentically.  By this I don’t mean to criticize.  What I do mean, is often people don’t have the awareness that they may not be living in their truth.  Often instead, we show up with our masks.  As Alan Watts has said, "The word 'person' comes from the Latin word 'persona', which referred to the masks worn by actors in which sound would come through. The 'person' is the mask - the role you're playing. And all your friends and relations and teachers are busy telling you who you are and what your role in life is."

So, then, who are we without those identities?

          The“self” encounters all that is external, and through this encounter, the self is influenced or pressured.  Stripping away the layers of roles that we create can help us find our true selves, our Sat Nam.  As Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj has written in “I am That,” we must find out who we are by discovering who we are not. 

          And this is the vision for Third Eye Integration – to provide a space for authenticity.  When one thinks of being authentic, one may think of being genuine and committed, or at least having good intentions. But I am looking at it more philosophically, where authenticity is existential.  To be authentic, then, is being the “self” regardless of external forces.  

          My influence to these thoughts often comes from my love of philosophy: Zen and Existentialism, in particular.  I align with Martin Heidegger in his thoughts that all things, including humans, have a primordial essence that is concealed by the world.  This is to mean that what is true or authentic, may be hidden by the common everyday-ness of the reality that one lives.  This also means that the essence of true discourse may also be hidden.  This is our Being – the conscious self that exposed to the external world and its influences, which is not a subject or a self, but instead, it is a presence, or the essence of humanness, or Being.

          Existence is an essence.  An Authentic mode of existence, then, is an understanding of the ontological Self, which is a relationship with one’s self, rather than a relationship with others; consequently it is an existence without evaluation.  Complete, and total acceptance.  Complete and total Love of self and all there is.

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