Just as the sun illuminates itself before it illuminates anything else, so awareness is aware of its own being before it is aware of anything else. The awareness of being is the experience the words ‘I am’ point to, and it is the same experience for everyone. Indeed, if animals could speak, and if God could speak, the first thing each would say of itself is ‘I am’. And ‘I am’ is the first thing you can say about yourself, before you know anything else about yourself, such as your name, your age, your gender, your nationality and so on.
Your primary experience is the experience of being.
Before you have the experience of reading this essay, you have the experience of being.
Before you have the experience of being tired, sad or lonely, you have the experience of being. Before you have the experience of thinking, feeling, sensing or perceiving, you have the experience of being.
Before you have the experience of being twenty-two, or forty-six, or seventy-three years old, you have the experience of being. Before you know you are a man or a woman, you have the experience of being.
Even before you know that you are a person, you have the experience of being.
The experience of being is your primary, most essential, most intimate experience. It is what you are essentially, before any other experience has been added to you.
