Tag Archives: True Self

SUBJECTS AND OBJECTS

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“Sin”
Is treating people (including one’s self) and other living beings as objects.

Objects aren’t real – they’re ephemeral –
Only subjects are “real” in any true sense.

For example, the ego is a self-made intangible “object”
While your “true self” is always a subject.

The essential work of human beings is to find and align
Their true selves with a “real” God – not with “made-up” ones.

Mostly, though, we need to jump-start our everyday lives
Into an alternative world of creativity, joy, and color –
That we’ll start experiencing the moment
We decide to put aside our comfortable ego
And, completely, “wake up”!

A MYSTICAL DEATH

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A “mystical death” entails dying to one’s false self –
That is, to the “ego,” and becoming “enlightened.”

This is difficult to do, however, because most of us
Have never known anything else.

It’s a death-defying “leap”
Out of a cherished, comfortable, and manipulable ego
Into an evanescent and ecstatic “true self.”

Listen, before jumping –
Don’t bother even thinking about it –

Since, in truth, in order to “come alive,”
You simply have to “do it”!

BECOMING NOTHING

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Mystics use “poetic” language to express
An otherwise indescribable spiritual experience –
Saying, for example, that the ultimate meaning of divine love is “annihilation.”

Once you are able to set aside your ego-self and become “no body” and “no thing”
You’ll be free to love everybody and everything.

Meister Eckhart taught: “The “eye” which I use to see God
Is the same “eye” that God uses to see me.”
This “two-way” view – currently available only to God and God’s friends –
Is what we all should be striving to attain –
A freedom with no why in it –

The kind of freedom that ensures the impossibility
Of God or the true self from ever being manipulated
Again.

THE LAST MAGIC WORD IN THE POSTMODERN WORLD

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The soul
Is the “true self”
Buried under an avalanche of ego.

It can free itself
Anytime it wishes
Just by saying the last magic word remaining in the postmodern world:

“God.”

GOD IS SPIRIT

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People imagine a cartoon God
Because, too much of their time, they are living cartoon lives.

If true reality ever touched them
They might simply disappear.

Historically, it was easier to believe in a cartoon god
As a “drum major” for cartoon selves – that is, for our “egos”–
Rather than engage in an earnest search for a “real” God.

Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed all taught God was “spirit,”
And, given that a “true self” also is spirit –
And in the same sense –
There always existed a possibility of ecstatic “marriage” between the two.

If we believe God is a material God acting in a material world –
Then that is a complete misunderstanding of who God is – and what the world is.

Instead, God is “love,”
And that’s how we meet God – in love relationships.

God is “truth,”
Another good way to meet God – when we have the courage to tell the truth.

God is “justice” –
We encounter God each time we take a just action.

Finally, God is “beauty” –
So appreciating the beauty in our lives is another excellent way to experience God.

God, and our relationship to God, really, have nothing to do with “egos”
Or materialistic searches for “wealth,” “power,” or “notoriety” –

Instead, God is spirit and only spirit –

And that’s what the “true self” is too.

HOW TO BE “LIKE” GOD

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It’s certainly not about being powerful –
A few spiritual masters have said that, after death,
Each of us will be able to create our own universe –
But that’s just silly.

We’re not ever going to be God –
Even though it is possible for us to be “like” God
By getting “free” of all the “not-God” surrounding us.

After all, God is absolutely free – and doesn’t have to ask before acting –
We can be just as free – and in the same sense.

Wouldn’t it be thrilling to be as free as God –
To start thinking and acting, as a human being,
The same as God would if God were in our place?

What’s the main impediment for doing this?
It’s the ego, which we have mistakenly identified as our “self”
But the ego is not our “true self,” it’s only one of our own creations –
And being “man-made” – is not part of what God originally gifted us with.

We feel as if we’d disappear without our ego –
That we’d be a no-body, a no-thing –

And that would be right!

Because we aren’t an ego, a body, or a thing,
We are spirit – potentially, totally free –
If we accept being our “true self” –

Free as God, if we choose to be.

In such case,
What we’d lose is our artificial “self” – our ego –
And what we would gain is our “true self” –

Jesus called it “the pearl.”

IS “HEAVEN” ONLY A CARTOON?

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Every “outer” God is a false God
And that’s why “Jesus” can’t be substituted for our own soul.

Everyone needs to walk by themselves –
To talk, and to make things –
At some point, each of us simply has to let go of all the “outer hands”
And trust to one’s “inner self.”

This might be taking a big risk, however –
Because if we’re not fully ready –
We might fall down –
Yet, without discovering our true self, we would be nothing –
Other than an imitative puppet – even though fairly effective in the world
And acknowledged to be such.

There’s really no approach to the real God without being one’s true self –
Isn’t that obvious?

Jesus tried to explain this, in his teaching and life –
But people didn’t “get” what he was talking about
And so developed theologies of dutifully following “Others” –
Sometimes called “God” or “Jesus,” and, in other religions, something else –
But it’s still the “Other” – and not our true selves.

We know this is a serious problem
That the world religions, by their very nature, have been unable to address –

The essential problem is that many of us live too much like “puppets” –
In which case, “Heaven,” for us, would be a cartoon too.

TENTATIVE ENCOUNTERS WITH REALITY

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Everything – living and nonliving –
Shares, in some way, with God –
Even our sleepy selves.

But this effect tends to disappear
As soon as we experience it –
Yet is the reason it seems so beautiful!

Life appears to be, and is, exquisite
When we experience it slipping through our fingers –

We try our best to hold onto it –
But are able to capture only a few images
In memory or
Imagination.

As we mature, we come to believe
That the mind is “real” –
But this is a lie.

When we dive down into our personal ocean of unreality
Even kisses are only ideas
As we repeatedly lose ourselves in all the infinite dimensions
Of no dimension.

The truth is –

God, and the true self,
May be encountered, only tentatively,
One individual, and one moment,
At a time.

SURFING

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Human beings desire control in their lives –
Which is both a good, as well as a bad thing.

Actually, life is more like surfing –

If you go too far forward –
Or too far back –

You fall in.

It’s the same with our attempts at control –
Not enough, and life starts to fall apart,
Too much, and it can freeze up.

Western culture teaches that we should strive for as much control in our lives as possible
But this has led to embracing a “material” God.

It’s similar, isn’t it, to what Jesus said about the birds –
Which don’t have to worry about what they eat or wear.
Jesus knew people had to work –
But thought it just wasn’t the most important thing.

The paradox each of us needs to solve
Is how to become our “true self” –
The child that’s still able to play –
In the midst of a responsible adult life.

It is a lot like surfing, isn’t it –
Balance being the most important skill.

Playful as a child –
Responsible as an adult.

This takes a lot of practice
Like all other critical life skills.

BORN AGAIN

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“I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” John 3:3

Christianity teaches that Jesus was referring to salvation based upon a belief in him.

But Jesus was actually talking about being born “into the Spirit” – not about a commitment to himself.

So, what does it mean for one to be born “into the Spirit”?

I think, first, this requires a determination of the meaning of one’s “self.”

Each of us is born as a “true self” – but, at this moment in history, a “true self” probably wouldn’t be able to survive past his or her childhood. That’s why a person, while still young, accepts the substitution of an “ego” or false self in place of their true self – so that they can successfully integrate their “self” into the world – i.e., with their parents, community, and surrounding culture, including their nation and religion. This successor “self,” in most cases, takes the form of the strong and healthy ego that Freud described.

But what are the costs of living through an “ego” self, no matter how successful it may be in the world?

Think about consciousness as an open circle. Then picture the part accessible to the ego as a very thin slice – maybe 10% – 20%. From early childhood on, that’s the part of ourselves we choose to live within – with all our experiences needing to fit within that narrow slice or be excluded. Excluded how? The ego self requires, as the price of an effective existence, that each and every experience outside the scope of its chosen roles be methodically and ruthlessly pushed back into the unconscious – sealing those experiences off from our consciousness.

So, what happens when we’re “born again”? Upon being born again, we gain access to all our consciousness – all 360 degrees of it – and are able to experience full reality. We become completely “free” and totally open to all our experiences – just like when we first came into the world as a newborn baby – but we also retain all the experience and knowledge of the person we had become by the time we were “reborn.” This rebirth, however, doesn’t happen to an ego – it only happens when we’re able to break free of the ego we had earlier accepted – and start living outside it. That’s what Zen training, for example, prepares us for – to get “outside yourself” in order to become “free of your ego.” This is essentially the same path which Jesus taught – that we need to be “born again” in order to become our “true self” – the self God originally provided us with.

Once you become your true self, you’ll enter “Heaven” – and no longer be creating karmic problems in this world. That’s because you’ll be experiencing everything clearly – by being able to see yourself at the same time as you’re participating in the world – by an ability to stand “outside” yourself. This makes it possible for you to see what God wants you to do in any given situation – just like Jesus was able to – allowing you to act the same as God would act if God were a human being like yourself.

Let me say this as simply as possible – once you find your “true self,” you won’t be Jesus, but you’ll have become someone like Jesus – because you’ll have done what he recommended – spiritually, you’ll be “born again.”

All the “Angels in Heaven” start singing when this happens –

or perhaps,

You’ll simply be able to hear the angels who’re always singing – once you’ve gained the “ears to hear” that everyone receives upon being “born again.”