Erasure

Note:  This post is written to dovetail This Excellent Commentary by Rikki Winchester.  Check it.

The most ridiculous idea that circulates post seeing no self is that it's a cure all.  Yes, this next statement is true:  Once seen No Self can't be unseen. 

But that's not the end of the self.

What it is, at first, is a relief.  A huge relief from the seeming burden of constantly creating a self, or of holding onto useless identity-based baggage.  Abused as a child?  That wasn't you.  Made several awful mistakes?  There's nothing for it to be attached to.  If the thought now pops up that the deed done was especially abhorrent, then should the opportunity to act similarly again arise, the behavior will most likely not be engaged in. 

All those mistakes or unfortunate things from the past aren't following a You around and so don't have to be repressed.   Good news, right?

On the flip side, if you're known to go around performing charitable acts on par with Mother Theresa, after which you play the Humble Card by proclaiming humility, the mouthful of false humble pie is unnecessary.  There's no one to take credit.  This time it's really true when you say, with a dismissive wave, "Aw, it was nothing, really."  Yeah.  Really.  It wasn't.

So you see, everything outwardly seems to remains the same.

Except it's entirely different.  And the difference is in an altered perspective within thought.  Your friends and family may not notice anything unusual at all, except that the neurotic behavior may have eased.  Or maybe the constant clinging to storylines start to fall flat.  Other changes?  The incessant chatter about your problems and your worries ring hollow, and it's possible that the image-propping monetary purchases begin to slow down.

Maybe.  Hard to say.  There's no one controlling it.  But the personality is likely to largely remain. 

Personality is a thought pattern, and the Self is still recreated with each new and habitual selfing thought that pops up.   What's more, that self is always created within the current moment even when that new thought is supposed to be accessing a cherished "memory".  The memory isn't past, it's happening now. When it's gone, it disappears completely, taking that just-created version of You with it, until next time the brain's electrical impulses take a similar route and produce another thought like it. 

But it won't be the same thought.

In that way, "You" have always been a Tabula Rasa.  Clean slate.  But that's a truth which still requires seeing through the false selfing thoughts as they arise, each time they arise.  This is especially true for the selves newly liberated.

No Self is not a one-and-done, not a cure-all.  Keep questioning, keep looking.  There's a whole lot more of the slate to clear.

Photo credit:  ThereXandXBackXAgain on deviantart