Self and the Fall of Man

A love letter, written to a 'client' this morning....

Dear M,

I still think you have an intellectual understanding and not experiential, so we should continue to work on this.

 

Though we've talked about how this is factual, because of your years of experience in the spiritual world, I can see in your writing that there is still a cloak of emotions surrounding your idea of what seeing this might look like. You'll have to jettison that for now because this is so very much practical that it can completely be explained in a scientific way. Now, that can be quite a disappointing thing to hear for someone with your experience, but what it also does is to make this completely accessible.

Make no mistake, this is entirely accessible, and without struggle. What's needed, however, is to look at this in a very matter-of-fact way. The question of a separate self is actually a 'yes or no' and very quick answer. The struggle is in trying to see that through the bullshit spirituality dishes out about bliss and love and peace. All of that isn't there going in to the inquiry.

Is that awful to hear? I'll repeat it, though, so that we can bring your expectations in line with the work to be done.

This is in no way spiritual. This is factual, and as a matter of fact, thinking that a self exists is what's so damned weird. The practical matter is that it is nowhere to be found. And what do you need to surrender to? The loss of that crap sold by gurus just to keep people hanging on. If you do surrender it, you'll see what's so plain and clear that you'll wonder how you've missed it this whole time, and then you'll realize that you were looking past it for the brass ring.

Where is the self? It's not mysterious, not mystical. Where is this thing the brain has been conditioned to believe is automatically there? Why in the world can it not be found anywhere outside of a concept? Why has no one, throughout history, found one? What is plain when looking out through the eyes? The WHOLE WORLD is there in the view, without a single trace of a self.

And then the conditioning comes in and completely dismisses this absolute and astonishing fact, and we go back to believing in something no more real than unicorns and fairies.

It's really unbelievable. We are literally brainwashed. The whole world is. And THAT, in a nutshell, is the Fall of Man.

 

Delma

 

 

photo credit:  4you by munuh490 on deviantart