There's no you. This we know. But there is an
assumption that there's a you. It's there, always, from when
you're a very small child. You grow up with it. You
live with it.
Am I this? Am I that? Such a nonsensical question when
you've seen the truth, and yet it's the fundamental concern of the
human animal, of the human mind.
The reason that 'liberation' as we experience it is shallow is not
that we have not seen the real truth, but we have not seen it's
depth, breadth, or intimacy.
Intimacy. How intimate can a thing be? What is the
polar north of intimate? Something so precious that we'd turn
the world upside down to preserve it, something so good that we'd
never question it, that we'd leap to it's defence as a matter of
instinct without even stopping to check the facts, because it is so
good, and so worthy.
There's nothing there, no self - and so we create something.
We paint a picture, of sorts. But deeper than that,
more than that - we build in our minds the image of who we really,
really want to be. Who we *really* are beneath all the
failings and the chaos. The *real* us. The *deep* us.
The intimate us.
Because there is no self, we build one. We create a
character, and play that character.
Think of it like this. If there were a stage production of a
work of fiction, say... Lord Of The Rings. And you were
playing Aragorn.
Now imagine if you were a method actor. A method actor lives
the role, they climb inside that character, embellish it from
within, work it out from the inside, do everything they can to
create a complete and coherent person. Something true,
something that rings true.
Something that rings true.
It is the point and purpose of a method actor to lose themselves to
the role. They inhabit it so deeply and so completely that
they (as much as possible), in the moments they are on stage, that
they forget that they are on stage. That they forget that
this is just a costume and this is just a play. That Aragorn
is a fictional invention.
Imagine if you will what that feels like from inside. To
breathe life into a personality, to live it, to bring it to
life.
Except - no amount of belief or sophistication will ever make
Aragorn a real person. No intensity of feeling. No
depth of sorrow, no height of joy - he is a fiction, he was never
real. There was never a real Aragorn, and there will never
be.
This is not a metaphor. I am not using this example to draw
your eyes to similarities between that process and the processes of
self. They are the same processes. You're looking at
the same thing.
Ciaran was always a fiction. Right from the start, always.
And what a fiction! Such a tender thing at heart, so
precious and vulnerable, and yet capable of great fury and focus.
It was a fiction that was woven, woven over a hole that the
mind could not abide.
The hole is the self. Because there's nothing there, we fill
it. We fill it with fiction.
And not just fiction. A fiction. One fiction. The
one central fiction. The one act that has always been playing
ever since you can remember and even now.
We cannot call this 'you', for even that word is not personal
enough, not intimate enough. Not you enough. But there
is a character here called Ciaran, and there is a character reading
this - you know it's name. It's the name you've been called
since you were old enough to cry.
What is real and what is not? Such a fundamental issue, and
so knotty with paradox. Was Ciaran real? Was there ever
a Ciaran?
Was Aragorn real? Was there ever an Aragorn?
No.
And... actually yes. Aragorn was never a man, never a real
person. But he was a real fiction. Lord of the Rings is
a real story. The self is a real lie.
Ciaran is a real character - as a character that has been written.
As a fiction is a real fiction, I am real. But only as
that.
How complex is this Ciaran? Ha! Simple as a single
note, yet sophisticated as a symphony.
Look at the fucking thing. Look at it in you - you, your
principles and hopes, pet peeves and vendettas, a one character
play that has been embroidered and embellished every day of your
life.
The difference between seeing the fact that there is no you, and
seeing the fictional nature of your actual personality itself is
very intense.
Because it is true. There is no you - so you are a fiction.
You are a fiction. An incredible work of fiction.
Look how incredible a work of fiction you are.
There is no you - so you are a fiction. And you embody that
fiction, as the method actor embodies Aragorn.
What the fiction called? Ciaran? Stephen? Kevin?
Kat?
Insert own name here.
Just look at the fucking scale of it.
And that's what Tolle saw. Not that 'there was no him'.
The exact words that he spoke that broke him free were "What
is this self I cannot live with anymore?" And then he says,
he saw it. The false self. The ego.
Ego's too distant a word. You is too distant a word.
For me, Ciaran is not too distant.
It is not that there is no self. It's that this self, this
actual self - is a fiction.
This actual self, as in this self, this one, this self - the one
reading this. You, whatever your name is - you are a fiction,
an incredible fiction of incredible sophistication and scale.
And in that is reality - you are a real fiction. You've been
written since you were a child, and every moment a new sentence, a
new paragraph, a new page.
The ramifications are pretty big, but I'll leave my speculation
about the origins of the fiction and the nature of reality for
another day.
Suffice it to say, I'm pulling some serious fucking shit off this,
and I wonder if you guys can rinse anything from it either.
Check it out, tell me what you come back with.