The first belief I form every time I awaken into this body in this world of sensations is that I exist here. My decision to believe this is instantaneous, as is my forgetting that I made it. But I do make this decision every single awakening. It is the moment I detach from who I am, and attach to who I think I am.
The first time I remembered my first belief I caught only a fleeting glimpse of it. However, I knew it more deeply than anything I had ever known before. And when I saw it, a lifetime of long-forgotten memories made sense. A life spent protecting something, even as that something was taken away from me piece by piece, until I had long forgotten what it was I was originally protecting.
Both before and after I saw this moment, I was and am in a small, damp prison with no exits. I had been here my entire life, and I knew every corner. But in a moment of mindfulness and prayer, I remembered something, looked over in the corner and caught the briefest glimpse of an entire existence I had forgotten. A small opening through which I could see everything I had ever wanted and will want. It was Me, and I remembered, for just a moment, how I got trapped here: I decided to believe that I was and am here.
When I shifted I could no longer see the opening, even as I ran my hands along the walls where I glimpsed it. Though I could not see it, I felt it and feel it because I know it as I know nothing else: it is Me I saw. But the walls of my prison have once again risen around me and I cannot see Myself anymore.
I can revisit this moment I decide to believe I am here, in this prison, through mindful prayer. I close my eyes, withdraw my awareness from my prison, and concentrate around my first self. The opening arrives in the form of a distant memory; a memory of a decision I made so long ago that it precedes all other memories I hold.
As I revisit this decision, I will remember this choice I make every awakening. I will experience that fundamental memory come closer to me now, compressing a lifetime of memories into a diminishing moment. I did not make that decision four decades ago; I made that decision this morning when I woke up. And I am making decision right now.
My first belief that I am a person here in this world is the walls of my prison. But the walls are only there if I believe them. I must keep looking until my first belief is as familiar as all others which come afterward. And when that happens, the walls I have created will begin to crumble and brief moments of recognition will become longer moments of Being.
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