THE SELF THAT ISN'T

The "self" only appears to exist.  Since it is transient, in flux, constantly changing, and impermanent, it is an illusion.  It cannot be pinned down.

The self is in a state of becoming.  This is to say, it is forever becoming something else.  The person who walks into a room is not the same person who leaves that room five minutes later. 

The person has become someone else in that five minutes, having had new experiences there in the room, having gained new information about the room and the people there, but then also having undergone an additional five minutes of wear and tear on mind and body, having aged another five minutes, having moved five minutes closer to death.

Above all, the self is not separate from the rest of existence.  "No man is an island," as the English poet John Donne put it in his "Meditation XVII."   The self is part of a whole, one thread in a great tapestry.  Indeed, insofar as everything is Brahman, it is the whole.