Finding Ourselves

Why do we feel the need to “find” ourselves?  Are we lost?  No!  We’re already here! But we might feel lost. Why?

We are aware of what is around us, i.e., what is not us. When we focus outward, life is interesting. It flows. This is how we were in our childhood. Eventually we became aware that we existed, i.e., self-aware (either because others said things about us or as a natural part of our development). Now when we looked outward, we had the idea that we were ignoring ourselves, i.e., we were “losing” ourselves in the process. In reality it is impossible to lose oneself, since we are the self. We can ignore it, but we can never lose it.

Being aware of our self, we started focusing on it. “What can I get out of this?” “What do they think of me?” “I feel happy/sad.” “How do I compare to him/her?” We tried to turn our self, which is a subject, into an object. This painful mental process has persisted in us for decades. We are like cameras trying to take photos of ourselves. It can’t be done, but we torture ourselves trying. Rather than simply being involved in activities and observations, we think to ourselves, “How does this affect me?” This kills our experiences. It might seem that by thinking about ourselves, we have “found” ourselves, but all we’ve “found” is thoughts about ourselves, which prevent us from being absorbed in pure experience.

All this thinking has caused us to live a lie via the false self of thought (ego). If we would stop thinking about ourselves, and just be conscious without being self-conscious, our experiences would be clear and untainted because there would be no nagging thoughts of a self interfering. This is the essence of the “no self” philosophy: it’s not that the self doesn’t exist; it’s that we should not focus on it.

The only way to find our true selves is to stop thinking. At first this might seem like an exercise in becoming unconscious because we believe that we can’t be aware without thought. We believe this because we have spent so long living in our minds, which must think in order to function. But the mind is not us - it is just a tool, like an arm or a leg. We certainly can be aware without thought. Animals and small children are. We can be aware without thought because we are awareness! Therefore we can simply choose not to think and just be in the moment. This will bring pure awareness. This is how we find ourselves. It is what brings peace and bliss.

Some people seem to be able to not think much or to not be very self-aware. We might simultaneously resent and envy them: we resent them for living such “shallow” or “unexamined” lives, and we envy them because they seem to be enjoying life more than we are. We might think, “I’m self-aware and I think deep thoughts, so I deserve to be happier than they are.” Doing more of something doesn’t necessarily produce more happiness, enjoyment, or well-being. Every activity is good to a point, after which it can become counterproductive. Too much exercise can cause injury. Too much rest can produce boredom. Too much eating can make us overweight. Too much dieting can cause us to become malnourished. Well, too much thinking about ourselves can make us torture ourselves with worry, regret and frustration, all the while missing out on life.

So we don’t need to find ourselves. We need to lose ourselves! Our false selves, that is. Then the natural bliss of being, which we experienced before we became self-aware, will return. This is not regression to toddlerhood. It is progression to a state of pure being, no longer shackled by the unreality of thought, but fully conscious of reality.

Spirituality

What is spirituality?  The act of being who we really are.  Acting from our core, the “heart”, the “soul”, the “spirit”.  In short, spirituality is simply a matter of not selfing.  It is a way of thinking, or, rather, not thinking.  When we are spiritual, we understand, forgive, and allow.  We do not judge, resent, steal, or hurt.  The true self does not want any negativity to happen to anyone.

Spirituality lies beyond the mind.  It exists not in ancient texts or mysticism or having particular religious beliefs.  It has nothing to do with wearing robes or burning incense or meditating in a cave -- those are all activities of the body and/or the mind.  Spirituality transcends body and mind.  It refers only to the real us.  It goes beyond the things we can see and touch, beyond our thoughts.  It is to be found not by praying to a Supreme Being, but by dropping the false ideas of worldly accomplishment and eternal salvation so that we may find the peace that is already within us.

Are we spirits, i.e., non-physical beings temporarily driving organic bodies?  This cannot be proved.  However, it does not matter where our true selves are concerned.  We have a peaceful, harmonious center.  That is our “spirit”, whether physical or metaphysical.

We hear people refer to “my spirit” or “my soul”.  This is a syntactical error.  “My” implies something other than us.  My car.  My house.  My money.  We don’t have a spirit; we are a spirit.

We also hear the term “spiritual journey”.  What is that?  To where can a spirit journey?  Only a body journeys.  A spirit has no location.  It does not go from here to there.  What happens in a spiritual “journey” is that we simply become more aware of both our real and our false selves.  We “journey” from ignorance to wisdom.

The Ocean

You are an ocean.  You put up waves: waves of elation, waves of sorrow, waves of courage, waves of fear, waves of youth, waves of maturity, waves of beauty, waves of ugliness, waves of strength, waves of weakness, waves of belief, waves of doubt, waves of reputation, waves of obscurity, waves of accomplishment, waves of failure.  All these waves are temporary configurations of ocean.  But they are not the ocean.  They will disappear, because they are only movements, not stable forms.  Only the ocean persists.

If you define yourself by your waves then this false self will end when the waves end, so your idea of who you are is thus always in jeopardy, always doomed, and this will cause you to live in fear of annihilation.  You might put great effort into maintaining and defending your waves - sometimes competing, sometimes bragging, sometimes complaining, sometimes arguing, sometimes shouting - but they will disappear on their own anyway, because they are nothing but waves, and you will see that all your efforts were futile because you defended nothing.

To insist that you are your waves is to deny your ocean-ness.

When you realize that you are the ocean, there will be no anxiety about the waves’ imminent demise, because you will know that you are not them.  You will become aware that you are real, vast, and persistent.

Self-Worth

Many of us feel as though we’re being judged by others or ourselves.  Are we accomplished enough?  Pretty enough?  Intelligent enough?  Strong enough?  Rich enough?  Popular enough?  Do we measure up?  Have we earned enough self-worth?

That’s the perpetual problem: self-worth.  If we are not accomplished, pretty, intelligent, strong, rich or popular enough, we feel as though we are flawed.  Wrong.  Guilty.

Self-worth is an idea born of judgment.  Assessing our or someone else’s “worth” is just our ego’s attempt to feel better about itself by inflating itself or deflating others.  When we put our ego aside, we simply enjoy life, and the idea of self-worth doesn’t even come up.

Who is to say that beauty, intelligence, physical strength, money, popularity or accomplishment make one “worth” something?  What “value” do we have in an existential sense, and how is that value increased by worldly characteristics and deeds?  What currency is used to determine one’s “value”?  Is there a cosmic dollar? 

Worth is not an inherent quality.  One simply exists; there is no “value” assigned.  Now, one might be “valuable” to society as a scientist, entertainer, soldier, etc, but that is only one’s utilitarian value to other people. 

Not only is self-worth an absurd notion, but all the things that we use to measure self-worth are temporary.  Accomplishments are from the past.  Looks fade.  Physical strength diminishes.  Wealth can be lost.  Mental faculties can deteriorate.  People’s opinions can change.  This is precisely why the “self” as most people define it is false: we endure after those things fade or disappear, so any self based on them is certainly not us.

We worry that the false self we perpetuate is not as good as the false selves that other people perpetuate.  We miss the natural calm and peace we could get by simply being, without comparing or competing.  We feel a constant need to perform, to impress, to improve, to outdo, so we can never accept who we are, the way we are, now.  And the more we try to improve the false self, the more reality we give it, that is, the more we fool ourselves into believing it’s real.

Problems

We constantly “solve” problems, never realizing that the only problem is the very self we pretend to be. Lack of money, beauty, accomplishments, popularity, or what have you, is a “problem” only in the context of the erroneous belief that we must have more of them. If we would see through the lie and realize the conscious entity we truly are, then the false self would disappear, and consequently so would all of our “problems”.

The false self guarantees that we will always have “problems”. The entire premise is that we are always in a state of lack. As soon as we solve one “problem”, something else that we had previously given little or no thought to will become a “problem”. For example, if our problem is that we don’t earn enough money, we might look for and find a good-paying job. Will we be perpetually happy from then on? Of course not. We will then tell ourselves that we’re overweight, or not good-looking enough, or that we don’t have enough friends. We will be no happier, no more at peace, than we were before we got the job.

What is the point of “solving problems” when our state of well-being never changes? Why live a stressful existence of continually putting out fires? The only way to have perpetual peace is to drop the idea that we never have enough and that we must keep gaining/improving.

Give Up the Ghost

To say that you are a Caucasian, or a man, or a Republican, or a Venezuelan, or a Buddhist, or a lawyer, makes about as much sense as a banana calling itself a yellow, or an ice cube calling itself a cold. The labels we use to describe things are adjectives, not nouns. You cannot be an adjective; you can only be a noun.

So, what noun are you? A conscious entity. That’s it. No body. No possessions. No reputation. No group affiliation. It’s a difficult concept to grasp if you have spent your life looking at everything as mere physical objects.

Let’s say you were to lose a leg, or an arm, or an eye, or your money, or your house. Or let’s say you were to change jobs or political parties. Would that change you? Would you be a different entity?

When you define who you are by your attributes, you might become afraid to lose them. For example, someone who has always been a Democrat or a Republican might be deathly afraid to give up that party affiliation. This is what makes them defend their long-held viewpoints, even if those viewpoints don’t seem as correct as they used to. It’s not about truth – it’s about self-preservation. That is, preservation of what they perceive as themselves, which is of course their false selves, only they can’t see that.

A lot of thought, activity, worry, and defense go into the false self, so even if we are “winning”, there is still a constant level of discomfort and stress that we endure. We call this the cost of doing business: internal currency (physical and mental energy) in exchange for external commodities (wealth, approval, housing, food, possessions, social acceptance).

As long as we perceive that the benefits of upholding the false self outweigh the costs, the false self will endure. Only when the amount of suffering (worry, stress, fear, regret, frustration) outweighs the benefits will we become sick and tired enough to drop it.

Freedom

What is freedom?  “That’s easy,” you say. “Freedom is to not have anything bad happen to me, and to do what I want when I want.” While those things are pleasant, that definition falls short of what freedom really is, which is the ability to experience anything without resisting what is. For example, someone cuts you off in traffic. Your ego has a knee-jerk angry reaction. Now you are in a mental prison of your own creation. Sure, you are free to react in this or any other way, but you are trapped in an unpleasant mental state that you do not want to be in, hence you are not free. You cannot accept what is, you resist it, and you cannot change it. Welcome to prison.

Freedom does not mean that everything happens the way you think it should, because that would limit you to a small set of circumstances. Freedom encompasses all: sunshine, rain, gain, loss, food, hunger, water, thirst, work, rest, companionship, aloneness, pleasure, and pain. If you cannot accept every circumstance, then you are not free. Now, if you incur a very painful bodily injury, that is an extreme case, and accepting the pain might be impossible, but the vast majority of “problems” are quite manageable events that pass with no long-term harm.

True freedom means the ability to choose not only what to do, but also how to feel. If a motorist does not actually smash into your car or cause you any physical injury, then any negative reaction on your (i.e., your false self’s) part is a component of your self-created prison, for you have decided, “I refuse to be happy because he cut me off.” So you have exercised your freedom to choose how to react, but in the process you have thrown away your freedom by putting yourself in a mental box, not to mention poisoning yourself with anger, frustration, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, or what have you.

We are always free to act, react, or not act or react, in any way we choose. It might seem as though our knee-jerk reactions are uncontrollable, but that’s only because of the choice we’ve made to create and maintain a false self that doesn’t want certain things to happen. We can drop this false self any time we choose. If we choose not to, then we will remain emotional prisoners and experience pain whenever anything threatens our ego.

We can be free only from the false self, not as the false self. The false self can never be free no matter how much “stuff” it gets, because it will always be dependent on that stuff. The false self believes that getting whatever it wants makes it free, but its freedom is constrained to that very narrow condition, hence it really imprisons itself.  Plus, the false self is driven by desires it did not choose. Since it cannot let go of these desires, it will always be a slave to them. It might be free to pursue what it wants, but it will never be free to choose what the things it wants are.

The true self doesn’t need anything worldly. It feels happy/peaceful/blissful just to be. Not that it doesn’t want to participate in the world. It enjoys things of this world, but because it is already at peace, it does not depend on worldly things in order to feel good.

So the only path to true freedom is to drop the false self. This will allow us to view things as they are, not in terms of how they affect a false self, and unless they pose an imminent physical danger, we will not react with emotional pain.