That’s a great question and as ever my answer can only be what I experience it to be. So I am not saying what I offer here is THE TRUTH, for no one can tell you what your truth is. Rather it is my truth and offered so as to help reveal in you what is YOUR TRUTH.

In my truth there is only one being in the universe. That being is the zero sum total of everything - everything and nothing simultaneously. Some call it “the void”. An easier way to understand that might be to say it is like waves on an ocean cancelling themselves out, one peak exactly filling one trough resulting in absolute stillness.

Experience in the universe arises from awareness of being. In other words awareness - which is unity consciousness - is what provides the experience of life within the physical universe.

In order for there to be experience at all, there has to be relativity because you cannot experience hot without cold for example. So unity consciousness ‘divides itself’ into separate waves on an ocean of its own consciousness and experience is gained from the interplay of the waves.

You and I are each waves on that ocean each known as ‘the true self’ which is a unique experience to each of us.

The purpose of the true self is to experience that which cannot be experienced - the void (being). The reason it cannot be experienced is because when relativity arises you create ‘this’ and ‘that’ which is definition. But the void is beyond being defined for it is everything and nothing simultaneously.

The best we can do, is to have the closest experience possible to beingness which is moving close to the stillness before experience arises at all. This is the purpose of the true self. To flow back to ever higher and more sublime experiences of absolute stillness within itself.

It is this pull which draws the true self back to the source resulting in spontaneous heart felt action when the false self - the ego - yields to the pull.

Yes, great question Turtle.

Chris - you have a brilliant way with words...

You saying that " The best we can do is, to have the closest experience to beingness, which is moving close to the stillness before experience arises at all". This suggests that the True Self is actually unknowable???

When confronted with the question.. 'what is the true self' - my profoundly honest response is 'I don't know' -

Perhaps the Self in its naked unveiled true sense is unknowable?

Trin

Yes this is really tricky to understand and very difficult to explain.

In my truth, the one being in the universe is the sum total of all experiences - therefore nothing. It also happens to be everything because it is all there is.

This one being cannot (in my truth) be experienced because as soon as experience arises, whatever arises must be less than the all of it and so you are not experiencing the absoluteness of the being.

However, what you can do, is be aware of the void (the being). What you are experiencing now is awareness of the void and all experience arises from that.

In my truth ALL experience is designed to get a taste of what is beyond taste. This may sound like a pointless exercise but it is not.

Imagine if you can an exponential curve on a graph that has experience on the y axis and absoluteness on the x. As the line curves from infinite experience to infinite absoluteness, the line will meet absolute zero only at infinity. However, way before infinity is reached the line of experience and the axis of absolute zero are so close they are practically one and the same thing. This means you can experience close to what is beyond experience. I call this 'surfing down the razor edge of life'. It is ultimate duality, being and doing simultaneously.

This experience is (to me) 'the true self'.

Hi Chris,

I love the idea of "surfing down the edge of life". Can you talk a little more about it?

"Walking down the edge of life" means to me being completely engaged in day-to-day ordinary life with all its ups and downs.

It means accepting the absolute truth about what is going on and being completely honest with our emotions and motivations in the heat of things. The true self does not avoid any experience, it fears nothing.

The quickest way to get to the full experience of the true self is to sail as close to the wind as possible. In other words to accept head on all of life's challenges knowing that every event has but one purpose - to reveal something about ourselves to ourselves.

Can we risk breaking our heart to stay in our truth? Can we stay calm when all appears to be going wrong? Can we walk away when we know we should?

Can we make the right choice WHATEVER the personal cost to ourselves?

It is in this cauldron of fire, that the false self is sacrificed - crucified - until the 'dross' is burned away leaving pure unadulterated awareness - the true self.

This wonderful poem by David Whyte gets the drift:

"It doesn't interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned...

if you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need to change you;
if you can look back with firm eyes
saying "this is where I stand."
I want to know if you know how to melt
into that fierce heat of living
falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
to live day by day with the consequence of love
and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have been told in that fierce embrace
even the gods speak of God."
David Whyte