Earlier on in my life, I did not directly experience that I AM, only that the outside world was. I could not directly locate my real sense of Self other than as momentary reactions to the world (Descartes famous “I think therefore I am”).
Occasionally, and in sharp contrast to the eve changing and fleeting world, I would directly experience that I AM…whole complete, and never changing. Because, in time, the experience that I AM has become pretty much continuous, and since it is always the same experience of wholeness and completeness, the ever-changing world (including my individuality) seems impermanent and illusory by comparison.
And so, I have the sense that nothing is changing at all, even while the world is ever changing…like the famous refrain from Tennyson’s poem, “The Brook”, which contrasts the eternal journey of nature with human transience, “Men may come and men may go, but I go on forever”.
~ Warren
