Self-Centered or Centered-SELF?

The little “self” is an illusion.  Not “illusion” as a deception but more like a mirage.  It will change with time, it will die, it will cease to exist, it will fade over time.  Still (for a time) consciousness identifies with this little self in order to experience the one SELF as many.

Imagine entering your body as an observer.  You may enter the body at the system level.  You may take the form of a bone to witness the form of a muscle and as the bone you perceive yourself to be.  It is a wonderful opportunity but if you forget where you came from you see a muscle and think “there is a muscle and it is not me.”  You see yourself as a bone and think “I am a bone and not a muscle.”  Still you, the YOU that was before YOU entered the body to experience the body, is both bone and muscle.

Say you go deeper and get smaller (more limited).  You are now a red blood cell and you see a white blood cell.  You think you are the red blood cell and not the white blood cell unless you remember the YOU that YOU are.  Then you sees that YOU are the red and the white blood cell.

You go even deeper.  Now you are an oxygen atom looking at two other Hydrogen atoms and when you forget YOU, you think you are just Oxygen.  But wait you are really water that is really the blood that is really the body that is really YOU.

This YOU that is really YOU is the SELF.  The you that thinks it is just an Oxygen atom is the you that is the little self.  If the you of YOU is very strong and very insistent and very lost to the dream of the body, then that you will resist the thought of being something other than the self it perceives itself to be.  The little self is the limited version of the SELF that is really YOU.  If YOU believe yourself to be the limited you or the little self, then it will not be able to see itself as the YOU you are.  A YOU that believes it is only an Oxygen atom does not have the capacity to believe it is more than an Oxygen atom…until it wakes up.

This is our journey.  This is our primary purpose.  We are here as a self to wake up to the SELF we really are.  But don’t worry.  The awakening must happen since it is the purpose of being the forms we think we are.

This truth of our true nature, of our true identity, explains so much about our illusory identity.  Knowing the nature of SELF explains so much about the forms we perceive we are.

The SELF is all that there is.  There is no other.  There is no other SELF than the one SELF.  As the one SELF, it is impossible to see “other” outside the one SELF.  As the SELF, unconditional acceptance is all that there is because to reject anything is to say there is something other than just the SELF.  Consciousness is only consciousness.  There is no story to tell because there are no subjects or objects to make a story.

So when the SELF willingly limits itself to a form and takes the identity of a self, it retains the essence of the SELF.  What is the essence of the SELF?  There is no other!

Think about that last statement for a moment.  Doesn’t this explain so much?

When we believe we are a perceived limited self, there is no other.  Can’t you see this?  The story we tell ourselves as a limited self, is a story that may have many parts and pieces and characters and experiences but all of “that other” are nothing but the props in our OWN story.  To the limited self, there is no other story than our OWN story.  Even our seemingly other-centered experiences are really just experiences of OUR story and not the other “person’s” story.  Any thought whatsoever about another person’s story, is how we played a part in their story (which is really just OUR story).

It’s OK.  It is as it should be.  The SELF, when limited to the little self, willingly looses itself in the story of a perceived self.  It becomes self-centered because it must!  There is no other, remember?  

Consciousness remains unconscious until it becomes conscious.  When does consciousness become conscious?  When it must.  When the illusion of a personal story is no longer necessary for the purpose of waking up to the SELF.  The self-centered story no longer serves a purpose.

Think of sowing and reaping.  Consciousness looses itself to the illusion of separateness to create more and more separateness until the reaping of separateness is no longer necessary.  TRUTH is oneness, the ONE SELF.  This truth is discovered in the contrasting nature of the dream world.  The TRUTH is obvious.  The illusion must be reinforced to veil the truth so that when the truth is revealed, the truth is revealed as obvious.  The self-centered awakens to the truth of the centered self.

Let’s go back to the body allegory.  We take the form of a bone to know muscle.  We take the form of a red blood cell to know a white blood cell.  We take the form of Oxygen to know Hydrogen and water and blood and the body.  Think about it for a second.  When you know that you are the body and not just a bone but are a bone so that it can experience the inner workings of a body, you are on a fantastic journey and not a limited story of the bone world.  What a wonderful opportunity.  How fantastic to explore the inner workings of the body, the miracle that is a body, to experience the miracle up close.  Wow!

When we wake up from the dream of the self to discover we are really the SELF, it is so powerful and so amazing and so joyous and so peaceful and so exciting.  We are ecstatic and enthusiastic and free.  We are alive as we have never experienced before.

We discover we get to be a bone or a red blood cell or an Oxygen atom.  We get to be a perceived self with a limited story to experience the unlimited.  We get to enter the world as the SELF centered in this expression we call the self.  We are the SELF experiencing the world as a character in the dream knowing it is a dream just for the purposes of experiencing a dream.  We have experienced a transformation from a self-centered self  into the centered SELF we really are.

As a centered SELF, we now can express the essence of the SELF from the perspective of the limited self.  Unconditional acceptance of all things (or what Jesus would call unconditional love) is our natural expression towards our SELF.  What we perceive as other, whether it is a person or an object or an experience or a thought or an emotion or a concept or an idea…is just another aspect of our SELF.

The conflict is not about selfishness.  It is about being asleep.  It isn’t about being self-centered (as a bad thing).  It is about being naturally self-centered not knowing what the SELF really is.  As we awaken to the SELF, we awaken to a centered SELF existence.  Now our natural essence as the SELF becomes our natural expression through the self.  We are no longer in conflict.  We are now free to love our SELF (the definition of selfish) as loving everything.

Yay God!

Lance