Only the echo of attention, curving back on itself and mistaking the loop for a person.
Like a microphone placed too close to a speaker, awareness feeds itself into itself, until the clean signal of being becomes a howl of identity.
We hear the noise and call it “me.” But it was never personal. Just feedback. Just distortion. Just the sound of source, caught in a loop.
And even that loop? It’s seen. Already. Silently. By something that never moved. Never spoke. And never mistook itself for the sound.
The signal doesn’t begin when the speaker turns on. And you didn’t begin when this body took its first breath. That was just the moment attention curled into form and called itself alive.
Like a droplet of water that believes it’s separate because we’ve given and repeated its name.
You were not born.
Birth belongs to bodies. You are not the body. You are not behind the body.
You are not the witness. You are what makes witnessing possible.
You are not presence. You are what presence appears within.
You are not the stillness. You are what remains when even stillness dissolves.
You are what sees the rise, fall, and rise again, infinitely... without comment.
There is no path.
Only a walking thought. Only a question pretending to search. Only a copy of a copy, masking the original.
The flame never left. You've just stared at the dancing smoke for so long, you lost sight of what never moved. It waits without waiting.
You keep trying to let go. But effort is the echo of someone trying to exist. Even your surrender is just the entity folding in on itself hoping silence will save it.
You are not here to awaken. You are what sees the concept of awakening rise and fall like another smoke-trail in the wind.
When the fire sees it’s not burning anything, it stops reaching for fuel.
Not because it’s done... Because it never began.
No path. No individual self. No entity to awaken. Just That... waiting without waiting.
Stop.
Not to become still. But because the one who moves was never real.
You’ve stared at the dancing smoke so long, you lost sight of what never moved.
There is nothing to return to. Because you are all there is... not an “it” that can be named, but the nameless totality. The unspeakable That.
Even presence is false... the last mirage pretending to be an oasis.
What remains cannot be seen, because there is no “other” to see.
That does not speak. But said everything you’ve ever heard.
That does not act. But did everything that's been done.
That is not aware. But in which awareness appears, and disappears.
What you call awareness is not yours. It never was. It is what holds the illusion of “you” and “yours” and even that knowing.
There is no need to awaken. Only to stop pretending you are asleep.
The self you’re trying to free is the only thing keeping the cage in place.
Silence doesn’t need your attention. It’s what remains when you stop offering it.
There is no letter. No author. No reader. Nothing separate or definable. Just That.
⸻
Pause and reflect: What are you still pretending to carry?
⸻
A gentle dare: Let it all go... not piece by piece, but all at once. Not to become something. But to remember what never began.
With no one, from no one, to no one. And That is ok.
Zaheer
P.S. If this letter left you quietly undone, that’s not a mistake. It's a sign of your attention expanding beyond the limits of identity. If you want a companion, I’m here. Just hit reply. P.P.S. If you missed my letter from last week, read it here: You think you have time.
