As the consensual beliefs, rules and goals constituting the World of Man dissolve in awakened consciousness, a second startling revelation arrives: I no longer care what other people think of me - I am free. Nor do I care what others believe about the nature, rules or goals of the world. Now the divinity and magic of the world are self-evident and there is no need for beliefs. This absence of thought simply erases the whole complex of problems, effort, goals, fears and "shoulds" that run the World of Man. When the thought world disappears, I not only find divinity everywhere, I savor ultimate freedom. This does not mean I stop paying my bills, it means that my psyche is free to grow a new season of my soul without me (i.e., my ego) interrupting, over pruning, or imposing any more artificial goals.
So this is when I finally get to know my true self: to see myself clearly, accept everything I see without criticism or judgment, and nourish the new life growing from it. Now I finally get to be me. Because the idea of me no longer matters, no longer needs to be improved or corrected, no longer even exists, there is nothing in the way of this new growth transforming my life like springtime after the snows melt.
Freedom! The joy of this exalted state can neither be contained nor properly described; rather it has to be lived. It is the fount of life flowing once again. Forget your fears, come back to life, and let life come back to you. Permit new possibilities to grow like weeds, judge nothing, have no expectations, and see what happens next.
Dismantling apart the self-idea, of course, takes time. You spent a lifetime constructing an identity, resume, and social persona, and the habits of self-promotion are deeply ingrained. We are all narcissists in this game, all comparing our false self with others and ranking ourselves on some social scale of superiority. But it's all false, all mind. Remember how important those identities and cliques seemed to be in high school, and then you left and they evaporated completely? So it is with this new time of life. You are free now. Taste that freedom. Then, as the AA folks say, "Let go, let God."
So this is when I finally get to know my true self: to see myself clearly, accept everything I see without criticism or judgment, and nourish the new life growing from it. Now I finally get to be me. Because the idea of me no longer matters, no longer needs to be improved or corrected, no longer even exists, there is nothing in the way of this new growth transforming my life like springtime after the snows melt.
Freedom! The joy of this exalted state can neither be contained nor properly described; rather it has to be lived. It is the fount of life flowing once again. Forget your fears, come back to life, and let life come back to you. Permit new possibilities to grow like weeds, judge nothing, have no expectations, and see what happens next.
Dismantling apart the self-idea, of course, takes time. You spent a lifetime constructing an identity, resume, and social persona, and the habits of self-promotion are deeply ingrained. We are all narcissists in this game, all comparing our false self with others and ranking ourselves on some social scale of superiority. But it's all false, all mind. Remember how important those identities and cliques seemed to be in high school, and then you left and they evaporated completely? So it is with this new time of life. You are free now. Taste that freedom. Then, as the AA folks say, "Let go, let God."