Beyond No Self, Daniel Erway [reading fiction TXT] 📗

door for our deepest sense of our own existence to move out

of the tight confines of our beliefs and ego identifications.

 

Often when the sense of self is set free from the structures of ego-centered thought, it naturally expands into a full experience of the

underlying true nature. We call a sudden expansion into true nature like this

an awakening, as it seems we have awakened to a whole new reality that is

rich and full of joy, peace, and love.

 

However, again it is also possible for the sense of self or identity to

move into a different belief or assumption of no-self. This often happens

when the focus of a teaching or inquiry is on the negation of false

identifications, without a counter-balancing emphasis on the underlying

reality of presence. Some spiritual practices are specifically designed to

negate false identifications, such as the practice of seeing that you are not

this and not that until nothing is left. Some spiritual teachers and teachings

emphasize the non-existence of a separate individual and go on to suggest

that not only is the individual not real, but the world and everything in it is

not real.

 

There is a profound truth in this perspective, as it penetrates the usual

belief or assumption that the ego and all of its experiences are the most real

aspect of our experience. Even those who have tasted deeper reality often

return to a ego-centered perspective because of the momentum of our over

concern with the physical and mental realms. Even in the face of profound

experiences to the contrary, there is a habit of assuming that the most

important things are your physical body and your ideas, beliefs, and

thoughts, so much so that we think everything that pops into our heads is

important. We will even use the argument, “That’s what I think” to justify

our position, as if thinking something makes it true. Since our most common

thought or assumption is the assumption that I am the body or I am my

thoughts, feelings, and desires, this pointing to the falseness or

incompleteness of that most basic belief is vitally important to the loosening

of the grip it has on us.

 

However, in the absence of a pointing to and experiencing of our true

nature, there is this danger of the sense of self simply landing on a new

belief in no-self. Your sense of self moves from a limited and painful

identification with the mind’s idea of yourself to a more open and freeing

idea of emptiness and non-existence. While this is relatively a relief, it can

eventually be just as limiting as the original ego identification. When our

identity or sense of self has moved into or identified with nothingness, or at

least with the idea of emptiness or no-self, it can become stuck there. This is

often reflected in a kind of defensiveness of this new identification. Anytime

someone challenges you, you deflect the criticism or conflict by retreating

more fully into the idea of no-self. Or you can turn the tables on them and

try to convince them that they do not exist so their concerns are not valid.

This new identification with no-self can be flat and uninvolving. Life has no

meaning or value. So, what has been a helpful and freeing dissolving of

limiting structures can then become fossilized into a new limiting

identification.

 

Because it is your essential identity or sense of self that moves into or

identifies with the concept of emptiness or no-self, it is a very convincing

new identification. Whenever identity moves into an experience, it does not

just experience it, to a degree it actually becomes it. When your sense of self

is firmly planted in the body and mind of the ego, it feels like that is who

you are. And when instead of just experiencing emptiness, your identity or

sense of self moves fully into emptiness or no-self, it also is very

convincingly felt as who you are. When you move so fully into identification

with something that it doesn’t feel like just an experience but rather who you

really are, the experience becomes more global and convincing.

 

This is the power of identification to make a specific perspective or

experience seem more total and real than it is. If a particular identification is

limited and is a place of suffering, then this power of identification to make

it more all encompassing and real makes the suffering more all

encompassing and real. The power of identification can also make the dry

emptiness and meaninglessness of no-self seem more all encompassing and

real. They are ultimately both illusions, but it is through the process of

identification that we make the illusions seem real. Being or consciousness

itself is ultimately the one that is identifying, and when limitless eternal

Being identifies to create illusion, it does a good job of it!

 

However, no matter how powerful the illusion of suffering or

emptiness is when we are identified with it, identification is still simply a

movement of thought followed by a movement of our sense of self into that

thought. Since thought is always a temporary phenomenon, no identification

is ever permanent. In fact, every identification only lasts as long as the

thought triggering it. We become “stuck” in identification by repeating a lot

of similar thoughts. The sense of an egoic self or no-self are both created by

a pattern of repeated thoughts that identity moves into.

 

Because this movement of thought is always temporary, there is

always in every moment the possibility of touching the deeper reality of our

true nature as presence and Being. Even more amazing is when, with

repeated experiences of true nature, our identity or sense of self moves into

the realm of essential reality. Eventually it becomes obvious that the

expanded spaciousness of our inner presence is actually who we are. When

our identity moves into true nature, there is no suffering and no dryness or

emptiness. We simply are all of the peace, joy, and love in the universe.

 

There is nothing specifically you can do to move your true identity or

sense of self into the expanded dimensions of your true nature. Identity is

not something you do; it is what you are. However, the sense of identity

follows your awareness, and since you are ultimately everything, it can and

will identify with whatever is in your awareness. This is the danger of a

teaching that doesn’t point to or convey the existence of true nature. If

something is not even talked about or considered, it is much less likely that

awareness will notice it, and also much less likely that identity will

ultimately shift into it. This is why it is important to teach and explore the

nature of all of the qualities of presence such as joy, peace, and love, so that

awareness begins to touch them and eventually identity shifts to the

underlying truth of Being.

 

A subtle distinction needs to be made between your true identity and

the sense of self you have in any moment. Your true identity has and always

will be the infinite spaciousness of Being, including all forms, both physical

and subtle, and all of the formless emptiness of pure space. But your sense

of self is a flexible means for this limitless Being to experience itself from

many different perspectives. By having this quality of identity that can move

in and out of all kinds of experiences and temporarily appear to become

them by identifying with them, Being gets to try on all of these different

experiences or illusions from the most contracted and limited to the most

expanded and blissful. Without this capacity, Being would be a static

existence of infinite potential that is never expressed. By moving its identity

into and identifying with the myriad perspectives of limited experience, this

potential becomes experienced in form and movement.

 

So while mis-identification is the root of all of your “problems,” it is

not and never has been a mistake. Being has very purposefully shifted its

identity in and out of infinite apparent selves to try them all on for size.

Being stuck in identification is itself an illusion, since all identification is

temporary. So while it is helpful, from the perspective of a limited self that is

suffering, to explore and discover the other capacities of your identity to

move out of the ego and into true nature, ultimately all of the spiritual

teaching pointing to other possibilities is actually just a description of what

has always been going on, not a prescription for the right way to be. Every

expression of life is an expression of the right way to be, if the right way to

be is simply to express our limitless capacity to experience identification and

dis-identification, form and formlessness. The deepest fullest experience of

anything is to become it, and that is what Being has been up to all along.

 

The ultimate freedom or liberation is the discovery that it is fine to

identify and dis-identify. True freedom demands no limits, not even limits

against limitation. Since Being itself is completely free and unharmable, it

has been endlessly exploring every possibility of that freedom. This can

allow you to hold everything, even the spiritual journey, lightly. The goal is

and has always been the journey itself. You can be curious about this whole

process of identification with ego, with no-self, and with true nature simply

for its own sake. It is a rich and mysterious world of perception and reality

that we as consciousness inhabit. Why not taste it all? Life is and has always

been this endless movement in and out of identification, in and out of forms

and formlessness.

 

Finally, here is a short fairy tale about Being, which captures some of

this bigger freedom in a story:

 

Once upon no time, there was an infinite and eternal Being. Needless

to say this was one big Being. Being infinite and eternal meant that no

matter where or when it went, there it was. And of course, anything that big

was made of empty space, as space is the only thing big enough to be that

infinite.

 

While space is a wonderfully low maintenance thing to be, since it

can’t be harmed, this Being still had a problem: There was no one else. Since

it was already every-where and every-when, there was no place or time for

anyone else. It was not a horrible problem, but still there was no one else to

talk to, dance with, or play with.

 

What’s an infinite Being to do? It can’t really just create lesser beings

inside of itself as that would not be very interesting to an infinite Being. For

a truly infinite and eternal being to create little lesser beings to play with

would be like you or me making dolls to play with as an adult. There’s

nothing wrong with that, but that’s not very interesting after a while.

 

Then it had a great idea! Being infinite meant it also had infinite

potential, so rather than create lesser beings, it decided to create more

infinite beings. At first this would seem impossible since there is the question

of where would you put another infinite Being? There already is no space

left over once you have one infinite Being. But the great thing about space is

that it is completely empty as long as it is pure space or pure potential, so

two spaces can actually occupy the same space!

 

That was the solution! So, Being created an infinite number of infinite

space Beings just like itself. In a sense, Being cloned itself. Now rather than

having just a wind-up doll version of a Being to relate to, it had real, fully

amazing infinite Beings like itself to relate to.

 

Even