another thing that has come up on the radar recently is this debate about there being no self. i've talked about it a bit before, but since i've been attending a few satsangs, participating in an online forum, and writing here on my blog - it seems like this issue comes up more and more all the time. maybe that's because it's one of the few things i have a lived experience with, although i can't say i have any answers, opinions or knowledge, per se. but since i do seem to have some kind of feelings about the certainty of opinions i find around me.... maybe i am being challenged to say what i feel about this stuff.
admitting i don't really know anything is always a good place to start. i have no sure beliefs about any of this. but i am going to describe my lived experience as well as i can about this subject, and where it has resolved into, and see if that helps me make any sense of the issue - or teaches me what i may have to say on the subject.
so along our way to truth, we discover that we don't have a self. we are told that we're not who we think we are, in whatever way that comes up. we are told we're not separate and there is no little "me" inside here directing things.
when i first heard it, i knew it was true. i didn't want to investigate much further for quite some time, because i knew somewhere deep inside the price of the whole thing. so i went about my business for two and a half years, until i was really ready to begin the investigation. when it started rolling, it wasn't hard to see. it's not hard to see at all, intellectually, that there is no "you" or no "me" or no "self".... basically, that there is no little being called angela. however, that doesn't do a damn thing about the storyline called "angela's life"
after the simple intellectual understanding of there not being a me, i spent two years in an insane bloody battle, a massive deconstruction, as the reality of no-self spread across my life. if i wasn't a me, if i wasn't a separate being, then all the identities, thoughts, feelings, and storylines were obviously false also. they weren't me either. so they had to be chopped away.
to be fair, it would have been really simple to just sit on the intellectual understanding of there being no-self, and use that belief as a replacement in some kind of ego land for the self i had been before. i felt it, summoning me somehow, trying to draw me in. the nihilism was right there, so ripe and tempting. it would have allowed me access to whatever i wanted to do in life, license to behave however i wanted to behave, because the sense of power was so great, and the meaninglessness so apparent.
the grace of my life was a sort of love/integrity combo. the integrity part wouldn't let me lie to myself - to stop at the intellectual understanding of no-self and call it a day. the love part knew that if i was going around in the world acting like a yahoo asshole then i was no different than all the little deluded egos in the world i claimed to be above. i just knew, deep down, there was something more.
so i spent two years in a kind of hysterical frenzy, hacking away at everything that came up on the radar, removing myself backwards from everything i thought i was. first, the ugly parts went. and they went easily. but then, all the good stuff had to go too. all my favorite parts, my best storylines, my most heartfelt and beloved identities.
and then, and only then, after two years of that - did i finally back up, or pop out, of my life in such a way that the intellectual knowing of no self turn into a lived experience, every day, of there being no me.
the difference is vast, and almost impossible to put into words.
but in my life now, for whatever reason, i am surrounded by various kinds and groups and types of people, most of them set upon this truth path in what seems to be the safest way possible. it seems almost like the most glaringly obvious red flag around - to hear people pounding away on their opinions about this stuff, about what's real, what's actually happening here. it seems obvious they have bought into something, somewhere, and they've sat down...... knowing.
and i get really confused hearing them speak, because my experience with truth taught me one thing, really. one main thing. that i can't know anything for sure. it taught me, while i kicked and screamed and cried, and it didn't have one iota of sympathy. as my life burned down around me, i knew less and less with any certainty, until one day i was removed of all my knowing whatsoever.
and i was removed of my knowing because the thing that knew was the self. so, i can't really argue with any of them, not only because i am clearly disinterested and bored at the whole prospect.... but because i don't hold this lived experience of there being no me as an opinion or a belief or a philosophy. it just sort of "is".... in a way that isn't, quite. haha. ;)
the whole world of advita, nonduality, noself, satsang discussions.... it's kind of disgusting in a lot of ways. it's totally gorgeous, also, especially when there is a fully clear and lucid teacher, who has practice with a blade and can behead you in a way that leaves you smiling. that's what adyashanti did for me.
but the actual work, the honesty and integrity which is required to remain open to not-knowing, well... i just don't see too much of that roaming around. i see people acting like parrots, quoting things they heard from other people, or people just plain stuck on a loop without the humor and integrity to question it anymore. yes, the lived experience is that there isn't a self. but standing here, without one, i can't fathom for a minute how anyone could turn this vast, unending emptiness of mystery into a philosophy. really. how is it done?
my only thoughts on it are that to be capable of doing it, there must be a neo advitic no-self self fully installed and delusional. without a self, truly removed of it, or woken up out of it or whatever..... leaves not one single bit of solid ground upon which to stand and say "i know something." the teachers who speak from this empty space, and who are genuine, are deep down into paradox, and will contradict themselves all the time. they are aware nothing they could possibly say about it is true, and will tell you as much, with great humility.
it seems like the first buzzer should sound if you ever think you know anything, about any of this subject matter. if you're not in a place where you're openly questioning whatever pops up on the radar, saying, hey wait... that thing i think i know, do i really know that for sure? if the depth of the mystery doesn't seem integral in every moment, then maybe a bell should ring inside that says hey wait.... what am i looking through here? seems like a viewpoint, a stance, a belief. and aren't those what makes up the contours of a false self? hmm....
self or no self.... many people who get involved in this subject are people who care about the world at large. not all, but most of them, care a great deal. they see suffering and can't understand it, want to address it, want to find meaning, or find a way out of it. and i get that. my heart burns there too.
but in my lived experience, the world doesn't need more knowing, weather what you know is stuff about activism in egoland, or advita nonduality stuff about no self. it doesn't need the separation caused by walls and boundaries that spring up when you know something. in no particular sense does it "need" anything..... but in my own opinion, a little honesty and curiosity, and a big grateful heaping of dedicated integrity wouldn't hurt one bit.
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