Back when I was young and innocent, which is to say about a month ago, I followed a random link in a forum post and ended up at Ruthless Truth (yes, the one over there on the blogroll). I read a certain post, and it caused me to see something that changed my life forever.

I then went to a forum called the Ruthless Arena (yes, the one I link to at the top of this blog). It's a place where people who have seen the same thing gather together to help others see it. And this is what I posted:


So I read "Thunder and Sunshine" on Saturday night/Sunday morning. And I turned around and looked figuratively behind my eyes, at the space where I thought "I" was, the one to which all the beliefs and opinions and things are supposed to connect. And there was just an empty space. And I thought "wait, this can't mean what I think it means, right?" Then it hit me. If the space was empty, then there wasn't a need for it in the first place. No need for a space marked "self goes here". And then the space vanished.

So here's how I see it. I used to think that

I = A+B+C+D...

where A, B, C, D etc. are thoughts, beliefs, opinions, the body, mind, awareness etc. And enlightenment was supposed to be the realisation that this is not true, and

I = X

where X is some great mystical spiritual thing which will reveal all the mysteries of the universe to me once I realise that I am it.

Except that was totally missing the point. The reason I =/= A + B + C +D... is that there's no I. There's only A + B +C + D. And because there's nothing to identify with them, there isn't even an = sign. No equation. No equating. Just things that are.

So things just are, and just happen. Obviously, this mind, this body and this awareness (as in thing that observes thoughts and feelings, nothing more complicated than that) are connected. But I'm not the thing connecting them. They don't need a "me" to exist, and this is just as well since "me" doesn't exist, and never has.

That and I was pretty shocked when I realised nothing whatsoever had changed, at least right then. And then it was like "well, duh". The "I" never existed, so of course things would still work the same way as before with it "gone".