The self needs reference points for defining itself, which it finds through imaginary separation: in you, the other, the world, the past, the future, in space – which are all concepts in the landscape of the mind. The self is the creation of an assumed past life experience and an imaginary future, seemingly operating as an individual entity in a conceptual “now”. There are various coordinates on this map from a “lower” up to a “higher” self, from a “false” to a “true” self, a self between being asleep over awakened to enlightened.
The self loves stories about itself, stories of progress, of evolution, of success, of manifestation, of liberation; even the story of just being a fictional character or “no-one”. However, it doesn’t like the stories of failure and suffering, so it embeds them in narratives of a cause and effect, a source, a (karmic/traumatic) past life. And through various inventions like “practice”, “Sadhana”, “meditation”, “mindfulness”, “self-improvement”, “self-optimization”, “self-empowerment”, “self-awareness”, “self-healing”, “self-love” etc. it creates paths and methods and “hero’s journeys”, from escaping to overcoming to transforming up to transcending itself.
It creates many rules and instructions, guidance, and “dos and don’ts”, and while climbing up its fabricated ladder of consciousness, success, process, purpose, and intention, a gaping abyss below always reminds itself about the one direction to go. And if it gets dizzy or falls back some steps, “better,” “more,” and “next” stand by its side.
However, there’s nothing wrong with this apparent operator mode, that emerged out of the organic intelligence of an interconnected, unfathomable “organism”.
The wonder of this goes often unnoticed while being deeply identified with fragmentation, which might also be a wonder in itself.
Stories and beliefs of the self are part of a very creative survival mechanism, where interconnectedness eventually absorbs and assimilates all indivi-duality, where individuality itself is nothing more than a story, taking place in an imaginary world of separation among me and you and the others: “individuality”, a coordinate on an imaginary spectrum between “duality” and “nonduality”.
The self is always lost and can never be found outside of its self-created landscapes of a mirage, in which hope and faith operate as survival mechanisms. There is no oasis to arrive at, no heaven to reach, no promised land, no higher dimension, no final destination.
There is just this unknowable mystery expressing itself as whatever is, that can never be understood, never be fathomed, an ungraspable marvel.
All reference points are like the clouds in the sky, like the waves in the ocean: temporary appearance, eternal impermanence and transience, nothing to eventually hold on.
And while this might sound terrifying for the ever-crumbling territory of the self, this is the terrific freedom that is.
