Dear Stephen,
If peas can distinguish between
self and non-self, this would mean that self is a fundamental property to all
of the life:
http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-news/Plants-discriminate-between-self-and-non-self-1526-1/
Kind regards,
Damir
From: Imagine_Knowledge@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:Imagine_Knowledge@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of hucklebird@...
Sent: Sunday, 29 March 2009 10:25 AM
To: Imagine_Knowledge@yahoogroups.com;
SPACETIMEandCONSCIOUSNESS@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Imagine_Knowledge] Is the self real?
Is the self real?
I have heard it said that self is an illusion. But even a foolish self that is
tricked by illusion is still a real self, and so this claim does not hold up.
Moreover, a foolish self implies the existence of a greater self from which the
foolish self grew out and to which the foolish self will return. The trickery
of illusion brings certitude back to the question of selfness, and the self is
found to be transformative in the sense that better self identification is
sought.
The self is real for the sole justification provided by self evidence. It is
only the self identification that changes, and therefore most of us spend a
lifetime searching for our true self. The foolish self that has been educated
of its foolishness is now only the ego. The ego finds itself attached to things
of its own inventiveness. The ego is attached to its caricatures, and one day
the caricatures must be released as they are revealed to be only illusions
that outlived their usefulness. The ego`s persistent attachment is revealed as
foolishness, but this self-evidence only draws the ego closer to the greater
self because illusion can no longer captivate spirit.
The claim that self is an illusion means only that the egoic attachment to
caricatures are illusionary. The caricature giver is not the illusion, only the
caricature is the illusion. The ego is attached to caricatures, and may grow
intoxicated by the sweet nectar that is offered. The ambient nectar is strong
enough to blind us of our true identities, and so it must be very close to our
source. It will drive us to foolishness like mere puppet that are unable to
control their impulses, until one day we wake up and see the mess we made of
things. The sweet intoxication now transforms into an agitation, one we cannot
sleep through. And so we awaken from our sleep and the self transforms.
Therefore, the two-phase oscillation, of following a blind euphoria up to the
turning point, of feeling the newly discovered agitation that leads to
transformation, must also be close to source.
The felt oscillation is self-evident. They grow more refined, and distant to
the unstable oscillations of a bipolar personality that only represents
pathology. When properly recognized, the mood swings will allow us to penetrate
deeper into the transcendental that becomes more self evident. We follow our
hopes, and adjust course when disappointments are felt. We follow inductive
logic, and subject it to a critical deduction. We follow the ego, but
discipline the ego when it acts only for selfish reasons. We concentrate on a
problem with great effort, and step away and relax and then solve the problem
without effort.
This life force, the self-evident oscillation, must be shared by all life. The
life force relates to the universal, and so it has the power to move well
beyond our isolated egos. And because it relates to the universal there must
also be a universal grammar. There must be a way to translate our provisional
attitudes into God`s language, even when we are misbehaving. Misbehaving is the
ego getting drunk enough on the sweet nectar until the time comes that the ego
can feel the misbehaving too. Getting drunk on the sweet nectar will lead to
the felt heartburn, and this calls for paying back the karmic debt. In other
words, the side effects of misbehaving were meant to be felt. That is, the
revealed self-evident affirms the existence of the universal grammar. Strangely
we can translate this essay into God`s language, and sing about an angel with a
smile on her face that had fooled the ego once again: