The Great Nothing

The most fundamental question you can ever ask yourself is:

"What am I?"

This is not a question that can be answered on the level of mind and thought. Whatever answer the mind is capable of coming up with can at best only be a pointer to truth, but more often than not any answer we can give to this question will be a distraction more than anything else. Even if that might be the case, it is still an undeniable fact that experiences and sense impressions come and go, thoughts and feelings come and go, wakefulness, sleep, birth and death come and go, but throughout all of this there is one constant that never ever changes:

I am.

The bare fact of my existence is indisputable, self-evident and unshakable. All sorts of thoughts, theories, explanations and feelings about this can appear in consciousness, but none of that can ever change the fact that I am. Whatever is happening, whether it's internally or externally - I am always there as the awareness that embraces it all. This awareness that I am is completely non-judgmental and completely accepting. This awareness cannot be defined, as it is not an object that can be externalised. It is the formless dimension in which all phenomena come and go, and has no form or attributes. It just is, and without it nothing on the level of form would ever exist. Just as the empty endlessness of the sky cannot be touched or affected by the clouds drifting by, what I am is completely untouched and unaffected by anything that drifts past on this journey we call life. This is really all that can be said about who I am, and even this is quite possibly too much......

......on the other hand, it might be of some relevance to mention that realising the truth of your being is not a result of anything you can ever do. There is no technique, method or system that will ever lead to self-realisation. The various methods and systems of self-development and meditation that have been devised throughout history might be good enough for their own purpose, whatever that might be, but they are all irrelevant when it comes to truly knowing yourself. What you are is already the case; nothing can be added to it and nothing can be taken away from it. It is the formless reality that underlies all external reality, the one consciousness that is nothing and everything at the same time.

What is it that is aware of these words and their meaning?