Unconditional Self

    :This is a personal revelation founded through years of seeking, written in late summer of 2016:

What if the mind, body, and soul are naturally unconditional? What part, if not the whole, does the ego play in our conditioning?

Much of our lives are conditioned. As a matter of fact, at the core of it, the entirety of our human experience is conditioned. Everything around us in some way has an effect on the way we perceive things, the way we feel about ourselves and each other, what we are afraid of or comfortable with, our environment, the people we spend time with, the things we choose to love and cherish, or the things we choose to hate or ignore. 

But in my own understanding of things - what I think or feel about things, and the choices I make - are superficial in themselves. If I am to understand that my brain is limited in its capacity to understand true reality, or God’s reality if you will, then what I see and think isn’t anything close to unconditional. 

Consider the idea of what life would be like if we had no language to distinguish what was around us. You could point to a tree, but you wouldn’t know to call it a tree. In this query, what then is it? What exactly is this object? It has a trunk, and branches, green leaves, but for now, we don’t have words for these parts of the whole. So we couldn’t know to consider that the leaves were, in fact, the color green, comparatively to the color red. We couldn’t know to consider the bark on the tree as rough or hard, comparatively to the smooth soft texture of its leaves. What’s more, is that we could only consider that this tree is something we could see, touch, taste, smell, even hear. And even then, we could not describe, without words, that a tree has a texture, has a sound or a vibration, has a smell - but somehow, without the necessity of describing it, we know it is there. 

It still exists, physically. It is still perceptible, mentally. But is it understood?  

Without the scientific explanation of photosynthesis, would we know that this object is a fountain for our body’s essential energy for living; oxygen? Would we even know we were breathing it? At a deeper level, would we even realize that we were performing the act of breathing?

So my hypothesis is that; our endless need for distinction, for labels, for explanations, for the answers to what and why, just may be the core of our conditioning - and is just as formerly ascribed; endless. 

I will often gather information presented to me by various sources, and pick and choose what agrees with my current perception of reality. I will choose my own conception of what God may be, what life is all about, what my purpose is, all based on a feeling. Personally, when I write, I feel a certain way. I feel a fulfillment of myself, an inner spark which carries me to a high that I can’t get any other way. I attribute this feeling as a deeper understanding of myself and what I am meant to do with this life. With this, I consider myself a writer. I call myself a writer, among other things. I am also a musician, a vegetarian, a truth seeker, a good samaritan. As far as personality goes, I am mostly reserved, calm, and positive, but can be selfish and have high expectations of myself and others.  

So, in the way we identify with ourselves - with flaws, strengths, skills, likes, and dislikes - and with the way we identify with the rest of the world - with religion, political viewpoint, race, gender, and sexual orientation - where do we find something that is static, something unchanging, something trustworthy?

Is there such a thing?

To use the tree again; when viewing it as a whole - the leaves, the branches, the bark, the trunk, the roots - it has all the qualities of being hard, soft, smooth, and coarse. As the seasons change, the colors of the leaves change. At the right time the leaves will fall to the ground, fertilizing the soil below. As the seasons cycle back again, the leaves grow back, and shine green again, and is restored to what it once was. There is the tree, lively and in the peak of its beauty; comparatively to the idea that it is deathly and ugly when bare. 

Over an extended period of time, in the right conditions, the tree will continue to flourish, unharmed. On the other hand, the tree may rot out, and fall down. Yet, surrounding its trunk, there grows smaller, younger trees, miraculously if we had not known that a seed was the cause of it. It is just as well that the fallen tree is used also as nutrients for the soil, a home or food for animals and bugs. Nature lets not a bit of it go to waste.

When seeing all this as a whole - albeit redundant information - with each occurrence, each change, each part, each stimulant of this tree, all at once, without having words to describe the differences of each part or to separate the roots from the leaves, is there any point in which you would find separation from this tree and its stages? Or do the stages of change in it’s cycle hold more truth than the defining of the tree as it applies to the senses? When seeing, only for a moment, and a moment too fast to visually capture the slow but continual changes that occur in this cycle, in any cycle for that matter, is there anything actually true to the reality of this object?

At a deeper level, when even departing with the idea that the tree and its cycle are something other then everything else around it, is there anything truly separating it from the entirety of existence - aside from the defining of it by words and senses? 

Is there any point that one could make that says ‘well this here has absolutely nothing to do with this’ and have it hold true to the reality of existence? 

I don’t think this would happen. Without conditioning, there would be no separation of things, but an observance of a giant mechanical process; one cog spinning another, one causation putting another into effect - and that the process is being observed is still a part of that process as a whole. 

In moments of misunderstanding, I often see myself as separate from this machine - as an observer, or maybe even as someone who may be delegated the duty of maintaining this machine. This too, in any distinction from what I see or hear or experience, is a part of my conditioning. When I choose to misunderstand myself as a separate entity in which I have experiences from - that ‘I see’, that ‘I taste’, that ‘I hear’, that ‘I feel’, that I am ‘here’ and not ‘there’, that I am ‘this’ and not ‘that’ - I set up a personal reality that is the basis for my living experience.

But, without using words to define myself against something else, I will occasionally find myself to be a part of it, and it a part of me. I find that it is not the ‘I’ that separates me from the rest of the world, but, as the ego would have it, how I identify with that ‘I’; how I answer the question ‘who am I?’.

For example, I will at times consider myself inadequate, unsuccessful, unintelligent, worthless, or unimpressive. This creates the belief, which creates the identification of self, that, in comparison to others, they are better than me, that I am not good enough, that others have something I don’t, that I am lacking, that the world may be better off without me. Some would agree that thinking this way is wrong, self-destructive, or unproductive - and some would agree that this thinking is good, self-motivating, or humbling.

On the other hand, I might consider myself intelligent, special, that I have great strength and courage, that I will do great things or have done great things with my life, that people admire and respect me, that I have everything I ever wanted.  Some would agree that this is wrong, that I think I’m better than others, that I don’t deserve what I have, that I’m selfish, and prideful, and am only ever out for myself - and some would agree that this is good, that I am an inspiration, that I am compassionate, that I am a prime example of humanity.

Why this is relevant, is because I will sometimes value what others think, being separate from myself, more than what the truth actually is. I am conditioned to agree or disagree with others, with the way things are, to shape my life the way I would like it by choosing from the options given to me. I am conditioned to believe what others tell is right and wrong, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, what is true and what is false. This has nothing to do with actual reality, with actual truth.

But without that conditioning, I find myself, not as one part of a multitude of things within the universe, but as the universe itself - as existence in its entirety. This is the essence of the unconditional self, this is the truth. We find that what we are observing with our senses, seemingly outside of ourselves, is still ourselves. We find that there is nothing that we are not, nothing that we are separate from, nothing that is right or wrong, nothing this is ugly or beautiful. Everything simply is.

At a greater understanding of this, I often find myself looking for reasons to pull the veil back over my eyes. There is an immense gravity of guilt that comes with this understanding. Following that guilt comes a great and overwhelming compassion, both of which cause an amount of suffering that is difficult to handle. Where this guilt and compassion comes from is the death of a now irrelevant point of view, and the birth of a now completely new observance of reality. 

Once I had begun observing myself as one brush stroke of a complete painting, I could no longer hold on to many of the opinions I once held. I could no longer make choices I once made. When looking back at many of the choices I’ve made, I had begun to realize how much I had hurt others unintentionally, or in other words, hurt myself. While this understanding is still growing into a way of living, I often question whether or not my choice of words or actions will harm anyone or myself.

To use the tree analogy for this conclusion; we have here this life giving entity, and somewhere in history we decided to utilize this entity for something more that its original purpose. Cut it down, shape and mold it to your liking, form it to a purpose personal to your desires. Build with it, for example, a shelter which you could safely reside in, undisturbed. 

This image, now in mind, is but one particular moment in the entire process. At a different angle, let’s say a timeline; eventually this tree, which has been severed from its own source of life, is going to rot away, and will need to be refurbished or replaced. 

But here, knowing this truth of all things, we can consider that an entity whose purpose has been disrupted will diminish ungracefully, but left alone, unadulterated, unconditioned, it would grow and flourish continuously. More on topic, the act of destroying any part of existence for any reason, is no different that destroying the self.

With this in mind, I ask you, will you continue life cutting others down, trying to mold them to your liking, force life to work on your terms, reaping everything you can for your own benefit at the expense of others? Will you continue to treat yourself as less than, and diminish your own worth? Will you allow others to cut you down and manipulate you? 

What is it you will do now?