Selfhood

Selfhood is a tricky thing. While it's true that if there is no self, then there is no identification and no suffering. It is also true that if there is no self, there is no one there to love and be loved. You can't love an illusion. You can neither love nor hurt a non-existent being. The comforting belief that God loves me or that so and so loves me or hurt me is a non-issue.

There is no separation, but also no individuation. The childhood mantra, "Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so" is not a reality. If there is no self, there is no me. There is only extinction, and really there is not even that. Extinction requires a prior existence. There is no one. No one to save, no one to save others, and no others. There is just oneness, no one was, no one is and no one will be, and all of this is based on the fact that no peceivable self can be found. Everything is causeless.

What if the separate self is also intangible? What if there is an individual intangible self, that allows for both the experience of oneness and individuality, something like a spiritual form? Self inquiry is a wonderful method to discover silence or the peace that's always here, It is a wonderful opportunity to know the nada, the nobody factor of the human being, but who says there is no individual? Just because there is no tangible individual, it doesn't follow that there is no individual. Just because there is a sense of an empty house, doesn't mean that there is an empty house. Perhaps the house isn't empty, but still. As John of the Cross writes, "When the house was all still, I went out unseen."