Today, I’d like to introduce something that may seem small at first, but is truly where real transformation begins.
Not by adding more. But by gently seeing what has been here all along.
So, let’s start with an omelette. 😊
If you crack a few eggs into a bowl, whisk them and put them in a pan and fry them, then fold one half over the other, then there you go - you have an omelette. Simple.
That is the essential omelette
Now imagine adding cheese, a little ham, maybe some onions and fresh basil. It’s still an omelette, right? What’s essential hasn’t changed. The eggs are still there. But now, it has a different flavour and a new texture - but it’s still an omelette.
But what if we take away the eggs? What would happen to the omelette?
No matter how many yummy, luxurious extras you have in the pan, it would not be an omelette.
Because without the eggs, there is no omelette.
So, the question is not what do you like in your omelette - the question is: What is essential to you?
What about you is so essential that without it, there would be no you?
What would not be able to exist without the essential ingredient?
What about you is as foundational as the egg is to the omelette?
Life.
Without life, this body doesn’t move.
Without life, thoughts cannot appear.
Without life, nothing arises.
Life is the essential. It is our essence. It is who we are.
Everything else has been added.
What do I mean by everything else? The ingredients gradually added to the eggs, to life: the thoughts, the feelings, the personality traits, the roles and masks - your identity, your strengths, your fears - your entire story of who you think you are. In short: that which we refer to as our "self", the "I" - your "me, myself and I".
Conditioning in combination with thought gradually forms what we call the “self.” This "self" is an idea of “me” with its stories, preferences, and unique personality - it is not something we are born with.
It’s added. Just like we add ingredients to the omelette, we add layers of identity onto life itself.
This is so hard to see, I know. Because we have poured so much time, energy, and money into trying to fix the "ingredients" that have been added: we try to get rid of the onions, add more herbs, exchange the ham with chicken—convinced that the omelette needs something to make it "better" and "complete".
But what if what you are comes before all of that? And what if that, just like the eggs, is already whole and complete?
The self we think we are seems so real. So familiar. It’s been with us so long - performing, defending, striving, holding everything together…and we never pause to ask:
Who or what is it that’s doing all that?
Where did it come from?
And what would be left if I stop believing in it?
It’s built - layer by layer - through innocent conditioning, and made to feel real through the nature of thought. Over time, we began to believe that the roles we learned to play were us. We forgot the omelette was always egg underneath. We are already whole to begin with.
I am not asking you to just believe this. This isn’t something to take on as a belief. I would never want you to just believe anything I write or say.
This must be seen - glimpsed - in your own experience. Only then does it become real. Irrefutable. Undeniable.
Because once you glimpse it - even just once - it changes everything.
We see that we are life itself. We come before the identity. Before any performance. We see that it is life that animates this body and without life, the body would be nothing but form.
So what we add on top - our roles, fears, achievements, regrets - are not who we are, but patterns formed by thought and conditioning.
That’s why inquiry is so central to this work. Not to improve the personality. But to gently see through it.
Because once we see that the identity we’re defending isn’t what we truly are, then suffering changes.
We still feel pain. We still face challenge. But we no longer take the mind so seriously. We start to hear it like background noise in an office. No longer the voice of truth - just the echo of what’s been added.
When that starts to become clear, a different kind of peace emerges. One that was never missing - only covered up by thoughts and feelings.
And maybe, just maybe, we can stop trying so hard to hold it all together.
Because nothing essential can ever fall apart.
I wish you a lovely Easter 🐣 - or long holiday weekend, whichever applies to you.
With so much love,
Suzanne
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