Can I ask you some questions?
⏤ Sure.
According to you, what is a person?
⏤ Short version?
Yes, please.
⏤ A collection of stories it believes about itself. When left unchecked, those stories solidify into a core identity, a this-is-what-I-am kind of thing.
That sounds a bit harsh, don’t you think?
⏤ Perhaps, but “harsh” is also an interpretation, a story.
What’s wrong with stories?
⏤ Absolutely nothing. I love stories. It’s just that it’s too easy to confuse them with the real thing.
You mean, confuse them with reality?
⏤ Yes.
So, is that all I am then, stories?
⏤ I don’t know. What are you?
C’mon! You’re supposed to be the expert here, and you can’t tell me?
⏤ Nobody can. All anybody can do is point you in the right direction, but you need to figure that one out for yourself.
Alright. So before all those stories kick in, what is there, a “non-person”?
⏤ Direct experience of life, aka life experiencing itself.
Do you consider yourself a person?
⏤ I don’t know what I am, but certainly not a person in the sense I described before. Having said that, in consensus reality I play my role just like everybody else.
So you’re just pretending to be one.
⏤ Yes, and so is everybody else, by the way, but they seem to have forgotten.
Doesn’t it bother you not knowing what you are?
⏤ Not anymore.
What’s it like to be whatever you are now?
⏤ Come and see for yourself!
Ok, I’ll bite. How do I get there?
⏤ Short version?
Sure.
⏤ Drop all the stories you tell yourself about yourself. Notice I said drop them, not change them. There’s no point in changing one narrative with another.
By stories, you mean beliefs about who I am?
⏤ Yes.
All of them? My history, my personality, my entire sense of self?
⏤ All of them.
Ok, and what’s in it for me? I mean, what will I gain from this kind of psychological suicide?
⏤ Now you’re being dramatic. Think of it as a shift in identity. There’s nothing to gain but also nothing to lose. I can understand that from your side of the fence you might believe there’s much to lose. But once you see things from my side you realize they were just appearances and not really real. The person you think you are exists only in your mind. It’s only mind that makes it appear as real. Once you see that, the appearances drop by themselves, and what remains is the real you.
But why do it at all? Why did you do it?
⏤ I did it because I couldn’t not do it. You do it because that’s what you feel inclined to do above all else. If the inclination, the burning desire isn’t there, then it’s pointless, and you might be better off doing something else.
Last question. For you, was it worth it?
⏤ More than you can ever imagine.
❊ ❊ ❊
