How I Built My Image of a “Separate Self”

First came “responsibility” followed immediately by “problems”. That is the self. Responsibility and problems. The self is an imaginary being who gets punished and rewarded. That seems completely outside the realm of “freedom”. Even a child, maybe especially a child, has got to scratch its head in wonder about that one. The child is told “you are free to be anything you want to be as long as it is what I want for you”.

Once in place, “Self” keeps a dreamer asleep and dull. When challenged as not real that self recoils and will first say things like: “You don’t understand. I have responsibilities. I must care for my spouse, my parents, my children, my career, continually update my plan of wider and wider responsibility, and all the rest. And I have many problems, you see, problems that you say you do not have, so, I am sorry but I cannot listen to or understand you.” If the challenge continues, and it will continue even without the challenger as the conditioned mind picks up this as a serious threat and wants to try to protect itself against heresy and imagined chaos. Self fears, most of all, freedom.

As a child self was taught that with freedom comes responsibility. That is a paradox. Makes “responsibility” and “freedom” elusive indeed.  Responsibility to whom for what? God(s)? Country? Parents? Bosses? Commanders? And, more importantly, just how far does freedom extend? Does the “catch” snatch away the freedom altogether? If one is set free by any of these superiors doesn’t that have to mean there is full trust? If the trust be justified the only responsibility is to freedom as a fact not an ideal and that truth nullifies responsibility. Which do you prefer? Freedom or duty? Self is scared to death by freedom…and that’s no joke. What’s behind that?

Some folks say aliens have been behind this situation for thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of years here on Earth.  Ancients left scrolls that were carefully prepared to last a very long time which they apparently hoped would eventually be found and translated. These scrolls  indicate some, perhaps several different groups, of aliens have been warring here to colonize the beings they found here as slaves to their alien programs. Hence all the books, movies, plays, etc. created to stimulate wide interest in the subject…including Star Wars! It is significant that some humans have practiced this very way against other humans and named it “colonization” and written it up as “history”. Wars and colonization and rebellion. Sums up history…oh, add “plagues”. It is not coincidental that selves write and speak of weather and disease as “enemies” to be fought and conquered. Hmmm.  Guilt pours forth from responsibility. Punishment from guilt.

Also, all the many gurus all around the planet who have definitely attracted large crowds of followers have been teaching there is a lot going on here of a spectacular and unknown nature that has led only a few to have much happier lives than all others. People sense the need for help. That is about it. What help? 

Well, it may be help to actually awaken from a deep sleep. At a point the urge to awaken in the slave will become so intense the dream background will be pushed far enough back to permit the dreamer to wake up to reality. Christians say you find Jesus Christ in you, for instance. That name is background from the dream consciousness and has a hold on those who have a Christian background. The other religions are much the same. The teacher in each story was attempting to awaken those present by showing he is just like them and it is so. All humans carry the entire consciousness of all humanity and that knowing itself is salvation. Self is but an image. Is it not obvious an image has no power but that given it by something that does have it? And if you do have it? What? It means, literally, each of us is what we wish we could be…as we are now!  Be you. The true master will be overjoyed!

PART TWO

And the waking up thing never ends since reality is unlimited. What waking up does end is the vulnerability to anyone or thing that might try to exploit again. What is present is what is. The past and the future are in the present and that fact is a powerful one. The operators are looking for someone under a spell believing the future is a fact which can be managed in the present that makes them “become” over time what they “wish” to be by sacrificing the present (which is all that there is or ever will be). However, by grace, these operators do not even see the human who is selfless because “selves” are caught between a rock and a hard place. They are attracted to a career where they can do “good”. When they get inside they learn the people inside are corrupt liars. By now they have a spouse, some children and a mortgage and a dream of becoming. That’s the hard place…the future to which they have been committed is the rock. Self concludes it’s a sorry world but there is no other as it struggles in its futile effort hoping to do what’s never been done. The selfless know peace and tranquility now. Big difference.

Everyone has been told that real freedom is not possible for living humans on Earth now, but, not to worry, you will find it after you die “up there”. What else has come from up there? Wherever you stand on the round ball of Earth up there is outer space. Real freedom is simple. It is a life lived moment-to-moment. Not dependent on a future, it is motiveless, open to the greatness in each moment. What you see is what you get.

It’s like a wild horse has built in its genes over eons of time an instinct that when anything gets on my back I must get it off as quickly as I can all else be damned and I must keep my neck free of its teeth. A cowboy ropes the horse. He gets the job to ride it. For a dollar. A cowboy who is free of self or motive approaches the animal knowing its fear of weight on its back and will only wish to make a friend and automatically allow the horse to be in complete charge of any ride that might take place. The selfless cowboy will ride the horse if and when the horse offers the ride. The dollar is of no importance to the cowboy whatsoever. Is it possible to live this way? Investigate with no motive. A motive distorts vision. Find out. A man is introduced to a pretty woman and told “she just might give you a thrill if you treat her right”. So, is it possible for the man to treat her right with no thought of a reward? Investigate. With no motive. Find out. 

When self is absent the background noise in one’s consciousness is pushed back so far that reality in the moment is all that matters. What is right in front of you is clearly seen. It cannot be more plain. What you see is what you get…as a way of life. 

Investigate. With no motive. Find out.

PART THREE

What is or was a self ever good for in the first place? Trouble is my answer. 

You go see a movie. To relax and find some escape from daily troubles self imagines to be real and important.  “Imagines”. “Real”. “Important”. That is the work of self. 

Seated in the theater, what do you know of how the picture made its way to you? The studio head made the decision to make it and to keep in going after it was begun. What are his or her selfish motives? 

The producer(s). What do they do? They are mostly concerned with the moneys spent and the money to be realized on the picture- if they do anything. Most producers listed in credits do nothing but draw a piece of any profit. 

The director and actors and crew do the creative work represented in what they hope to be art. Something we call a story is offered up. A story is an attempt to discuss, using thought and time, some mishmash of events that will take place on the screen. Is the purpose of telling a story to take the audience away from the story their own self tells them? Perchance to add a bit of advice? Or, comic relief? Or, to console? Action pictures can offer a feeling of revenge against those thought to have harmed the hero or to be standing in the way of his dreamed up utopia. As such, the hero is a stand-in for the self of each member of an audience, right? The self can pretend to experience revenge vicariously. That’s harmless fun, right? Well, it’s okay for the selves who are willing to go back to their own show on Monday to face the story of their lives with only some pretense revenge has happened for them or will happen someday. Consider this: do you know any more about the background of the self you claim as you is telling you constantly than you know of about the movie from Hollywood you go to watch? I like films, I do. I am only not so hot on “self”.

What would a life be like if thought and time could cease being used to narrate it? It would, would it not, be a life beyond both time and thought. Or, would life stop? Dogs and cats and goldfish live. Can you find out whether time and thought are required inwardly for a healthy human existence? If one human has done it, why not you? Ask to meet nobody.

Nobody knows you better than you know your…self?

The world of those who would say “I am religious” is divided into two groups. One is speaking of a divinity that is available through prayer and various other ways to make one supplicant to a deity believed to help one evolve over time into a better and better person and protect one from tragedy; the other is aware of how complete is the life inside and how absent is any “self” who could be praying for more. For the latter bunch prayer is simply 

“Thank you”.

 If you think you have a career that can be named or defined you are a boob, a fool, a prisoner in a jail of your own making where you are both the prisoner and your own jailer and where you are going to live throughout the term of this arrangement is the modern slave plantation whatever you may believe to the contrary. It matters not what they pay you it is not enough for what you have sold. You will eventually come to understand that the chances of a jail break are just very low. In fact, many like you have escaped through great and  arduous effort only to voluntarily return many times. Another thing. You will be allowed, even encouraged, from time to time, to change to an upgraded career with more perks. It won’t make a lick of difference. The deal you have made is so bad it cannot be quantified. The short of it is you have bargained with corruption to share in their artificial world. All your acquaintances will have done the same and these will be your crowd and to you it will seem the whole world is like the one you are in and that there really is no other. This factor alone will be a great pressure to stay for your choice is a complete unknown too scary to imagine. In this world you find yourself in people will from time to time say,

”I really don’t think there is anybody here who does not have a boss to answer to and this place seems like pure chaos. Nobody is in charge. We keep repeating the same pattern to nowhere. And that’s funny when you think how hard they sold us on the idea that to think otherwise than to join their system was to embrace chaos.”

When I was there I would often proclaim, “ Yeah, I know it's a sorry world but it’s the only game in town. I must adjust somehow.” Well, if you feel that way let me assure you it is not the only world. There is another. Right where we stand. Your locked up mind won’t let you see it. But it is here. Now. And open to all. It is freedom.

To enter is immediate and it is totally an inside job. Study what this means. Question everything you have been told. Discover your true nature. Then will it be known it is not the world that must change it is you! Discover each day and for the remainder of your days more and more of the endowment within. 

 ORDER OR CHAOS?

What need have we of a government from the outside when we have within a perfect governor in the form of moment-to-moment response to the whole of it all? Call it what you will the name is but a symbol for what cannot be measured, compared or copied. Music, as that word is commonly understood is memory. The personality wants to hear that song today we heard yesterday. As such it is old already and dying. What of a music that is new? 

From where does it arise? From where then does all music arise? Do we out of fear prefer yesterday’s music over today’s thinking it is security? Could that result in disorder on the outside? Or, could it be laziness as resistance to awakening each morning anew, fresh within, that keeps us in yesterday’s music? Both? Can you see that in such a state we are out of balance and likely to make poor choices? 

If so, at that point we become the source of the disorder we complain of and scream for a government from the outside to save us from it. What within us has a vested interest in controlling and limiting us? What separates, measures, and compares? It arises from thought not human nature. That powerful, dynamic fact can be proven by anyone bold enough to test it out in his own life. We need not await others to change. Once a human changes that change will automatically push for a change in others.  Find out what every sage knows.

This brings us to see something anew and to respond accordingly. Many times it has been argued that “We do not want to go back to living in caves” when a new song of freedom is heard. Such subterfuge is applicable only to mechanical technologies in the outer world and is used often to try to prevent a new way of seeing what is going on in the outer world from deep within. As in “How many times must a man look up before he sees the sky?” (Bob Dylan “Blowing In The Wind”). Look how little progress humans have made in how we listen to and respond to each other on the Earth. In fact, a good argument can be made that we have been digressing in that category since cave dwelling days. This is important.

 HOW SHARPLY IS THY RAZOR?

An Anonymous voice: Jazz was born from slavery in America when black people were slammed so hard it had to come forth as a way in secret to express freedom in the face of absolute freedomlessness. And that long word spells “I wanna perfect song to set things straight for me and you livin’ in a way we both know’s right before we die”. 

There are those here who are already thinking “this cannot be so because if {humansbeing} happened there would be chaos and mayhem and the apocalypse.” The answer everybody knows is: the law and order way we have been traveling so long we have no record of its beginning has brought a crisis so distressing to everybody it can no longer be denied. The other day another unarmed black man was beaten to death by five policeman. The President asked, soulfully: “ Where do we go from here?” Then answered himself: “We go forward.” And he’ll get votes for that.

Let me point out now the big difference between anonymity and anarchy. Both oppose superintendents. But anonymity means it. Anarchy is political. And anonymity is purely internal, selfless, founded in love. An anonymous person will point out what he sees from compassion for others and go on his way. When asked, “will you join the protest tonight” will reply simply, “no, I will be busy tonight.” What is mostly overlooked is the obvious fact that to be free of addiction to a selfish image one must let go of all consciousness that separates one from the whole of humanity to walk through life as Alias Everybody, a true friend to all.   

 There once was a boy who played on a ball team that lost not a single game.  

Championship after championship came and went and for these the kid has passed up so, so, so many other  gifts he never knew even existed. The kid filled a trophy case but holds not a hint what went missing from the more than 500,000 hours of his life. Yet he does know one thing…he is angry enough to kill.

 What Is Death?

A very great filmmaker has shot a scene to depict an early dinosaur mother witness the death of her offspring so as to remind us that we have come almost no distance from that mother’s wonder in all our efforts to progress as a species. We know nothing of death. We fear it. We try to escape the fear. It can be seen that just about every activity of man is concerned with an escape from the fear of death. We have theorized after-death possibilities but all are so ridiculous when examined for the simple reason that the thing we so much want to be immortal is definitely mortal. Of course it is the very thing that is created in order to escape the fear of its death that is bound to die. Or, was it the other way around? Was the fear created as soon as we invented the self? Do they go hand-in-hand? Ask a fox. 

Just say the line between you and me is not there.