Self

[Prashant Sharma]

On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, Miguel Angel Carrasco wrote:

[...]
> My summary is very poor, but I think it might show the point. My ego is my
> shadow. I can^Òt see myself. I can only see my shadow. So, lacking any other
> reference, I identify myself with it. One day, I discover that if I see my
> shadow, then I am not the shadow. I start trying to find myself, but I
> can^Òt, as an eye can^Òt see itself

  Comments: I think it is not as simple as the 'eye can't see itself'
reason implies. The real question is are we anything other than this
"automaton" shadow? Notice that it is the mind which is asking this
question and it can't accept a NO for an answer, simply because it doesn't
exist in the subspace of the mind.  Therefore the mind shall look for
answers everywhere except in the "right" place and because none of the
answers are true the mind has to flit around these abstractions.  So one
day it is satisfied with some philosophy and some other day something else
catches its fancy, but none of them are true (for if they are why aren't
all the questions resolved by them?). So the search continues.

>. So I just try to run away from my
> shadow. Useless flight: the shadow always follows. It^Òs not a question of
> going here or there, of doing or not-doing this or that. It^Òs a question of
> just seeing that it is all a shadow: how do you get rid of your shadow? In
> the shade. How do you obliterate a part? Not by seeking another part, but
> by nullifying the whole.

What is it that wants to get rid of the shadow: that which created the
shadow, in the first place. It is the mind which created this division of
the shadow and something which observes the shadow. How can you get rid of
this division until this whole system ends? All one can do is to recognise
this system and realize that, for all one knows, it is not meant for
something nor even is something.

>
> I don^Òt quite understand the talk about responsibilities. There are no
> responsibilities. The ones that appear to be are just the mind^Òs. I can^Òt
> be free from bonds by trying to be free to do this or that. I think that is
> an illusion. One is not free to, or free for, but only free from. Free from
> self-delusions, free from the idea that I must or can do this or that.
> Nobody does anyhthing. Things appear to get done. I (not my mind, but I)
> either just see the process or mistakenly imagine myself as an independent
> agent in the illusory world. The problem is not what I should do, but how I
> should watch it all. As an active part of the chain of seeming events, or
> as the quiet, unaffected witness of the show.
>
        Do you really have this choice? All this talk about watching
oneself is really an afterthought isn't it?.  When one acts there are no
watchers and no doers.  It is when the mind is not fully occupied in
activity that one can watch oneself.  It is for such times that the
concept of duty comes in as a guide to the "minimum entropy" way
(perhaps!).


> That^Òs what something within tells me. I may be quite wrong.
> And I wish I myself would follow my own advice, fool that I am!
>
        Who is not?

Regards.
Prashant