THE SELF THAT ISN’T
The "self" exists only relatively. Moreover,
since it is transient, in flux, constantly changing, 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 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.
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