By some accounts, No Self is the ultimate reality, the ultimate realization of personal fulfillment.
By other accounts, a True Self is quite real, a container and conveyer of ultimate reality, a witness to satisfaction on the way to ultimate fulfillment, being so much more than what it sees and knows, thinks and feels, loves and desires, understands and appreciates, even as it longs for complete realization of soul through encounter and yearns for the perfect evolution of spirit through experience.
No Self or True Self: which view rings true for you?
Before you (as True Self) answer this rather profound and provocative question, I (as True Self) invite you (as True Self) to consider, even contemplate, the rather strange words that follow.
The realization of No Self requires complete surrender, a complete surrender of True Self.
The implications of assuming the truth of this statement for life are (for True Selves) staggering beyond belief (quite literally): in essence, for soul, no attachments; for spirit, no expectations.
In other words, without attachments, no soul; without expectations, no spirit.
No Self implies no seer of what is seen, no viewer of what is viewed, no watcher of what is watched, no observer of what is observed, no witness to what is being witnessed.
Encounters and experiences, people and places, objects and events, situations and circumstances, come and go, coming and going as and when they come and go. No thing is permanent.
In other words, without egoic identification of any kind (no attachments, no expectations), no suffering is possible; the three deep, dark fears are no longer possible: the fear of letting go during sexual orgasm and the fear of dying in pain, anguish, or misery are gone, and the fear of losing control is no longer an issue.
From the perspective of those who value cultivating and celebrating a True Self, a realization of No Self nevertheless has considerable intrinsic value and immense instrumental value.
For the following reasons, serious practitioners of No Self are to be commended for their insights.
A timeless realization of No Self has considerable intrinsic value because it can experienced and enjoyed for its own sake, where you get an exquisite taste (One Taste, if you will) of peace and bliss, where you get to forget all about your attachments (peace) and where you get to drop any and all expectations (bliss).
There’s nothing quite like vacating your True Self and dropping into an experience of transient flow, into an experience of feeling and sensing for their own sake, especially when you’re alone and especially when you’re on vacation in a natural setting – no Self-consciousness and no Self-consciousness.
Just Consciousness of what is.
A temporal realization of No Self has immense instrumental value because it serves usefully and admirably as a blank canvas upon which to paint a picture of your True Self, as a blank slate upon which to write the story of your Best Life, and as an empty space from which to explore and examine your sticky attachments and your heavy expectations.
I say “a temporal realization of No Self” because you can always come back to your True Self and resume your relationship with, and your experience of, linear time and cycles of time. In fact, I strongly encourage that you do so, as illusory and dream-like as this relationship and experience may be, for the sake of being alive with gently held attachments and being alive through lightly held expectations.
With a True Self in relation to No Self, you have use of both canvas and brush, slate and pen, space and contrast. True Self and No Self can become and remain complementary for the sake of soul and interactive for the sake of spirit. A True Self can be built from the ground up with No Self serving as the ground. The ultimate realization of fulfillment can be both personal and impersonal.
As such, we can now begin to explore two very radical and potentially transformative ideas: Self as Art and Death as Life, with respect to the Witness and the Will, the body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit.
In my view, a healthy, happy marriage between True Self as Art via affirmativa and No Self as Life via negativa could very well represent the ultimate in fulfillment in this world at this time.
Note: more content has been added to the outline below. I’ve added and refined my list of distinctions for soul and spirit and I’ve added and expanded my list of failed attempts to maintain personal control.
TUiPF *
a message for our times: “be true, be wise, be free; love is the key”
Context
(Setting the context)
The syntactical nature of reality, the real secret of magic,
is that the world is made of words, and if you know the words that the world is made of,
you can make of it whatever you wish ~ Terence McKenna
consider this truth: “there is no truth”: true or false? if true, then false; if false, then true
words are powerful, as and when they are spoken in the light of truth, love, and wisdom
Basis
(A cosmic perspective)
Previous study: the cosmic life review (learn more)
Current study: a cosmic perspective on birth, life, and death
View this page to explore the basic issues
Essence
The ethical imperative: guard guide your eyes, guard guide your thoughts, guard guide your steps
What the cosmic life review indicates we do in the earthly realm: (1) sanctify; (2) purify; (3) justify
Does “what does it take to be fulfilled?” = “what does it take to be sanctified, purified, justified?”?
Ideals
Proposal: our prime directive as a species is finding the balance
- finding the balance between soul (being) and spirit (becoming)
- finding the balance between being perfectly full and becoming perfectly filled
- finding the balance between living soulfully (truly, deeply) and living spiritually (wisely, freely)
Integration
(A context for living life to the fullest)
proposal to universalize human need:
need 1: “a safe place to eat and sleep”
need 2: “a way to satisfy all my needs”
need 3: “someone to love and cherish”
need 4: “a healthy, vital outlook on life”
a vital distinction to observe in daily life:
satisfaction of need v. fulfillment of desire
the body is but a vessel for soul,
serving to contain all that the soul needs;
the body is but a vehicle for spirit,
serving to convey all that the spirit desires;
how might body serve to contain and convey
both soul and spirit as vessel and vehicle?
soul spirit
unity harmony
peace bliss
love joy
being becoming
loving caring
intimacy ecstasy
quality vitality
encounter experience
sacred divine
promise possibility
realization evolution
truth wisdom
responsibility freedom
depth height
inward outward
descend ascend
contemplation evaluation
involvement engagement
satisfaction fulfillment
cultivation celebration
dwelling peacefully flowing blissfully
heart of soul soul of spirit
contains conveys
accepts expects
let it be make it so
receptive assertive
attuned to what is required aligned with what is desired
dignity integrity
religious spiritual
awakening enlightenment
being alive being alive
Application
(A practice for living life to the fullest)
exploring …
the ways and means by which I can be centred in love
the ways and means by which I can follow (or manifest!) a path with heart
the ways and means by which I can be love truly and wisely
if the first pointer serves to expose the truth of who and what I am,
and if the second serves to reveal the meaning, purpose, and direction of my life,
then the third serves to realize a dynamic balance between my soul and spirit
the three deep, dark fears of spiritual beings in human form
1) a fear of letting go during sexual orgasm (the sexual fear)
2) a fear of losing control, of losing one’s mind (the political fear)
3) a fear of dying in pain, in anguish, in misery (the religious fear)
dysfunctional, maladaptive, unsustainable ways to maintain personal control
(here presented as pairs: a passive matter of soul, an active matter of spirit)
obsession
compulsion
abnegation
addiction
reclusion
pretension
repression
suppression
hesitation
distraction
insulation
rejection
submission
domination
regression
aggression
inhibition
deception
procrastination
manipulation
dissociation
exploitation
when life gives you lemons, turn them into lemonade ~ a popular proverb
how people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours ~ wayne dyer
Commentary
(a global perspective: why is humanity failing to fulfill its true potential?)
weaving a terrestrial narrative that aligns with a cosmic perspective, including historical, interdimensional, extraterrestrial, conspiratorial, and eschatological elements, is an exhaustive process
such a terrestrial narrative would have us explore and expose the causes and consequences of two widespread (and related) social phenomena: cynical detachment and egocentric entitlement
the story of Howard Storm: how a visit to The Other Side cured his soul and spirit of cynical detachment and egocentric entitlement, transmuting his contempt for humanity into compassion and compersion
If darkness is your problem, talking about darkness won’t help.
If darkness is your problem, nothing can be done about darkness directly.
You cannot throw it out, you cannot push it out, you cannot switch it off.
Darkness is an absence. Nothing can be done about it directly.
If you have to do anything, you have to do something with the light, not with darkness.
~ Osho (Fear: Understanding and Accepting the Insecurities of Life, p. 136)
Questions
1. “I just can’t stand it anymore … why go on?”
2. “Wrong body, wrong family, wrong planet … why?”
3. “Why am I making such a mess of my life?”
4. “What does it really take to be (become) fulfilled in this life?”
5. Soul: “a sound approach to being perfect: possible?”
6. Spirit: “a sane approach to becoming perfect: desirable?”
7. The ultimate in truth, love, and power: dare we ask?
Study Notes
- incorporate the use of symbols with these elements: sphere (soul), spiral (spirit), pyramid
- presence and pretense: best to view them as complementary, rather than as mutually exclusive?
- follow these elements of perspective: form, structure, substance, orientation, appearance
- the
devilchallenge (problem, difficulty, obstacle, inadequacy, struggle, conflict) is in the details - the privileged among us: a little too preoccupied with celebrity, technology, personality, positivity?
- extroverts and introverts: “living on the surface” and “living from the depths with presence”
- the cosmic life review: a representation of the ultimate in personal fulfillment for a life lived?
* TUiPF = The Ultimate in Personal Fulfillment
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Next: Ultimate Fulfillment 15
Note: this ever growing perspective began here: Ultimate Perspective