[Photo credit: artist and illustrator, Siri Stiklestad Opli http://www.fjellbjorka.no]

Not YOU of course. Not the you you really are. No I mean the idea of who you are. The identity. The insecure, vulnerable self that we believe ourselves to be. That’s the you we are talking about here.

This idea of self is a creation of thought. It is a collage of whatever is believed from infinite hand me down thought, conditioned thought, collective thought, ancestral thought, generational thought, caveman thought, from books and magazines and headlines, from the blackboard and bosses, from horror films and romance, from comparisons, from praise and insults, from embarrassment and achievement, and on and on and on…

Who knows how all this comes together as the idea we call the self but that mishmash of chatter is who we believe ourselves to be.

And this mishmash self is by nature insecure and unstable. It is made up of all that randomness. How can it not be?

But it yearns to be secure. It knows deep down that its nature is security and so, driven by the areas where it is most vulnerable, it tries to make itself peaceful and happy.

And this is a double whammy of insanity.

Whammy #1: the idea of self can never be secured.

Whammy #2: what the self sees in the world is just a reflection of the same mishmash that created the idea of self in the first place. The self and the world both appear as a result of the same beliefs.

So the self trying to secure itself by controlling the areas where it feels most vulnerable is a dog chasing its tail. Round and round in circles.

The self that is financially insecure and a world of con artists are the same thing. The self that needs a partner and the people that cheat and walk out are the same thing. The self that needs to be a good parent and the child that goes off the rails are the same thing. The self that needs to be respected and a world of disrespectful people ARE THE SAME THING.

So while the self is on the relentless quest to change the world so that it can feel secure, the world is actually, very kindly, showing that self the impossibility of its quest.

It is a perfect design.

Where the self most needs to see it, is where the world will seem to be making it most vulnerable, insecure, angry, offended, anxious.

Where it is most deaf and blind to what is really going on is where the world will appear to shout the loudest and rise up most ferociously.

Wherever its happiness and security seem to lie is what will inevitably be wrenched away from it.

And when this happens, we can continue the relentless quest to secure the idea of self. More get rich schemes that scam us. Another partner who will cheat. Another child who will disappoint us. Another set of colleagues who will disrespect us. Another object or person which will destroy our happiness.

Or…

Or we can see what is going on. That we are grabbing at and fighting our reflection. That we will always chase our tail until we see that we are not this idea of self with all its insecurities and needs and wants. We are the awareness of that idea of self. We are the space in which that self appears, desperate one moment, satisfied the next, then desperate again.

It is our world, showing us that we are not and have never been that idea of self. That trying to secure the self, which is only ever a thought, is impossible.

It is our world showing us, that we are space in which all this takes place.

It is our world, showing us, beyond any doubt, the peace, love and freedom we really are.

It is our world destroying our idea of self .

But only if we let it.