Spiritual Practice

Seeing the False as False

The 'me' that we take to be ourselves is a mental construct that is only self referring - meaning that it only refers to the content of other thoughts, which in turn refers to the content of other thoughts - and so it goes on and on.

The chain of referrals is between thoughts in a cross linking manner so as to give an appearance of 'substantialness' to the whole concept of 'me'. The concept of 'me' is only kept alive by the continuous stream of thoughts about the 'me' - all identifications of your true nature with thought. Without this continuous stream of identifications the self concept of 'me' would cease to exist.

The basis is this construct is a thought or an assumption about the 'me'. Thoughts about the 'me' occur from time to time, as do many other thoughts. We do not choose our thoughts - they just occur.

The central issue is that the thoughts of the 'me' never get to 'point to' something other than just another thought. This is quite different from thoughts about a 'chair', for example. In the case of a chair there is such a thing as a chair, which you can see and to which the thoughts point. No question about that.

We actually do exist and we are aware - there can be no doubt about that as well. That which exists and is aware is Awareness itself, which is ineffable. The mind cannot 'handle' ineffableness and as so points to something else which it can handle - an isolated mental construct as the 'me'. An objectivized concrete version becomes the 'me'.

Bob uses the following analogy to describe seeing through an illusion. Suppose you ask someone to get a bucket of blue water from the ocean. The person would laugh, because they know that the water in the sea is not blue even though it looks that way from a distance. They are not fooled, even for a second. They have seen the ocean at close range and know that the water itself is not blue - and are well aware that the appearance is an illusion.

What then happens when the illusion of the 'me' is seen through?

Does this mean that there are no more thoughts about the 'me' appear? It is the same question as asking if the ocean no longer appears to be blue!

The only thing that happens is that the illusion is seen to be what it is - an illusion.

It is an exercise in seeing the false as false.

So there can still be thoughts about a 'me' - which are seen to be an illusion, just as the ocean is seen to be blue, another illusion.

Written by Mike Graham, 10 Feb 2008, last edited 20 Feb 2008