The
Title Of This Piece is For You A Secret
Jeanette Winterson
writes about the ego as “that hollow, screaming cadaver that has no
spirit within it”. Sexing
the Cherry, at
105. That is the best I've come across. She wonders if that is what
people who describe the search for God as a way to be rid of oneself
are referring to, the ego. She writes that ego is the ideal self run
mad. She likens it to searching for one thing and quite surprisingly
finding another “in a garden somewhere or on a mountain watching
the rain”. She points out for me that it is easy to lose
oneself, and, boy, do I know that! So it is, I
think, the ego we are better off without since that spells a sane
self. She goes on to say that if the ideal self, the secret self, the
other life, could be found and brought home a person could live in
peace and have no need for God who has no need for us, being
complete. That last statement may surprise with its tender, loving
message left behind for all seekers to feel no matter how they
conceive of a God. A relationship with the complete goes far deeper
than need nearest to effortless culmination. I now call that love, or
true love. My love waves and I wave back. I recommend the writings of
Jeanette Winterson to all human beings who read.
So, I am left,
myself, now, with the sense that it has all been a search for who I
am, a discovery I have been driven insane left to live as a hollow
cadaver with no soul, and finding a way to restore sanity to my true,
secret self. I, of course, have no way to know how you, in secret,
feel. Your life is your own. I feel a need to reach out to others
and tell what I know. Recovery is possible. But, there is no formula
for it. It is more undoing than doing, more unlearning than learning.
So, I say look for writers and teachers who irritate you to undo you
to unlearn. The one who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy.
One who pulls you out of shit is not necessarily your friend.
In secret I find
mercy and forgiveness enough to light the way.
