From a site visitor: “If there is no ‘me,’ then who is the person thinking, doing, feeling, etc?”
F.: Today’s posting provides an opportunity for review and then a chance for protégés to try to find their own answers, possibly. The “journey” is a “journey” to being in touch with reality. Why do so few have a willingness to undertake such a “journey”? Protégés should know the obstacles. (1) Persons—believing that their ego-states actually define who they are—are so absorbed in ego that the notion that their thinking might be wrong is anathema. They can point out rightly all the “others” who are crazy, but they don’t have any ability to see that they are merely projecting their own insanity onto “others.” I first witnessed that as a pre-teen at the insane asylum in Texas where my uncle was director. The patients thought their families, the counselors, and the directors were crazy—and they were right—but they hadn’t a clue about their own state of “mind.” (2) Persons are dissociated from truth. (More than that, they are the lie…“persona” meaning “mask.”) Dissociated, persons can be bored and yearning and miserable while claiming—and truly believing—that they are happy. The patients locked up in that facility acted happier than most who were walking about freely outside; on the other hand, for those who were completely out of their minds, they may have been happier. Persons can reach a state of being out of their minds—free of believing that lies are truth—without becoming so insane that they must be institutionalized. In fact, sanity begins where “the mind” ends, but most believe the “mind” holds the answer; thus, they never Realize. (3) The irony about mirages is that, though they are transparent and formless, they nevertheless form a prison from which most persons will never escape. Persons, believing that they are their personas, seldom develop a desire to cast off their masks. In their “minds,” they would be casting away their very selves. Truthfully, that is what would be happening: they would be casting away their false selves, but since they have come to believe that they and the masks are one, most will cling to the masks as long as possible and will never even know they’re masks. In that mindset of believing that the “oneness” = “themselves” + their “masks”—anchoring them in a dualistic belief that is a lie—what chance exists to see the non-duality, the Real Oneness, the True Self? Little or none.
F.: Today’s posting provides an opportunity for review and then a chance for protégés to try to find their own answers, possibly. The “journey” is a “journey” to being in touch with reality. Why do so few have a willingness to undertake such a “journey”? Protégés should know the obstacles. (1) Persons—believing that their ego-states actually define who they are—are so absorbed in ego that the notion that their thinking might be wrong is anathema. They can point out rightly all the “others” who are crazy, but they don’t have any ability to see that they are merely projecting their own insanity onto “others.” I first witnessed that as a pre-teen at the insane asylum in Texas where my uncle was director. The patients thought their families, the counselors, and the directors were crazy—and they were right—but they hadn’t a clue about their own state of “mind.” (2) Persons are dissociated from truth. (More than that, they are the lie…“persona” meaning “mask.”) Dissociated, persons can be bored and yearning and miserable while claiming—and truly believing—that they are happy. The patients locked up in that facility acted happier than most who were walking about freely outside; on the other hand, for those who were completely out of their minds, they may have been happier. Persons can reach a state of being out of their minds—free of believing that lies are truth—without becoming so insane that they must be institutionalized. In fact, sanity begins where “the mind” ends, but most believe the “mind” holds the answer; thus, they never Realize. (3) The irony about mirages is that, though they are transparent and formless, they nevertheless form a prison from which most persons will never escape. Persons, believing that they are their personas, seldom develop a desire to cast off their masks. In their “minds,” they would be casting away their very selves. Truthfully, that is what would be happening: they would be casting away their false selves, but since they have come to believe that they and the masks are one, most will cling to the masks as long as possible and will never even know they’re masks. In that mindset of believing that the “oneness” = “themselves” + their “masks”—anchoring them in a dualistic belief that is a lie—what chance exists to see the non-duality, the Real Oneness, the True Self? Little or none.
Once a person accepts an image as being real, or fabricates an image that she/he wants the world to believe is real, then the image becomes a prison. It will consume all time and energy in an effort to sustain itself. Living the lie, they become actors trapped in the "Drama of the Lie." But those who begin to doubt what they have been taught, and are willing to question it all, can proceed along the “path.” The questions usually begin as questions for “others,” but eventually the most vital questions are the ones asked by Self: “Who am I, really?” and “How did this body come to be?” and “Where was I in the days prior to conception?” and “I have found that some of what they taught me was a big pile of lies, but is it possible that it’s all a lie?” The realization that it was all a lie is the impetus to let go of the “mind.” When the “mind” fully ends, true freedom and sanity shall begin. For now, though, most are still asking their questions of “others,” so back to the question: “If there is no ‘me,’ then who is the person thinking, doing, emoting, etc?” Is it possible that the “me” refers to all of the false personas that wrongly think they are You? Is it then possible to find who or what can be aware of that fallacy of "the mind" that believes the lies that they told you about who you are? Is it possible that the “who” would be one of many personas with an agenda that is even hidden from the personas? Maybe the time is ripe for each of You to answer the question…Your Self: “If there is no ‘me,’ then who is the person thinking, doing, emoting, etc?” Please enter into the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
