Everything Is a Hymn of Praise to Being

‘I am’ refers to what we essentially are prior to thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions. We don’t always experience being tired, lonely, etc., but we always have the experience of being. That is, being always has the experience of itself. Just as the fact of being lies not only behind but pervades all inner experience, so being does not just lie behind but pervades the world. The very first thing we know about anything is that it is, just as the very first thing we know about our self is that ‘I am.’ The world does not dictate to us how it should be seen – it is we who impose our view of reality onto the world, and the world appears to us in accordance with that view. The world is not what we see, it is the way we see. Everything continually sings a hymn of praise to being.