Finding the True Self

There are other metaphors that might be more helpful. Rather than digging through layers, imagine you are peering through veils. The veils are flimsy lace, not solid fabric, so you should be able to see through them, but the veils are moving in the breeze and this distracts you into looking at the veils rather than looking through them. If you start to focus beyond the veils you will see the reality that they are obscuring. In this metaphor the “you” who is looking is the true self and the veils are the false self; the movement of the veils is the movements of your mind, particularly thoughts and imaginings about who you are.

Calming the mind in meditation and similar practices is like getting the veils to slow down their movements so you are not so distracted into focusing on them. One of the problems of the “digging”metaphor is that it focuses attention on what you are digging through, which is the illusory self. This only puts more attention on illusion—which would be like putting more attention on the veils, the opposite of what is needed! You do not see the true self beyond the veils, the true self sees its relation to reality when it is undistracted by illusion.

Another metaphor is being an actor in a play. This is an improvisational play in which you act based on the kind of character you are supposed to be rather than having fixed lines and a plot with a predetermined outcome, so you try to “get into” the character as thoroughly as you can. Now imagine you have gotten into character so thoroughly you forgot you were in a play! Everyone around you is responding to you as though you really are that character, so it is easy to doubt the nagging feeling that you might actually be someone entirely different. This is the position most people are in—they are acting out the character they have become and have lost touch with the true self.

Suppose someone in the play says something about being actors in a play you get a glimmering that you may really be someone other than the character you are playing. If you try to find out who you are by sorting through the various facets of the character you are playing you will not get any closer to your true self. Similarly, sorting through all the thoughts and feelings about who you are that you have picked up throughout your life will not get you any closer to discovering the true self. You need to realize the illusory nature of that character in order to remember your true self, the actor.

Going back to the metaphor, you could find the idea that you really are an actor very appealing and come to believe it, but unless you remember who you really are you will just be playing the part of an actor—closer to the truth in some ways, but still just a character in a play. It is one thing to believe your usual self is illusory and another to actually wake up to your true self.

So what can you do to find the true self? The lesson here is to not let your spiritual search become overly focused on the various thoughts and imaginings about yourself that continually run through your mind, for all that is of the false self. The true self is not buried somewhere so that you have to dig it out, it is simply distracted by the drama of the character you have been playing, by veils blowing in the breeze. Who is seeking? Who is peering? Who is acting? Find that, and you have found who you really are.

© 2011 Alan F. Zundel

Alan F. Zundel is a counselor, author, and teacher currently living in Eugene, Oregon. His talks are available to download for free at HeartAwake Center at www.heartawake.org.