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Wisdom Story
A Zen Story reads...
A distraught man approached the Teacher. “Please, Teacher, I feel lost. I feel desperate. I don’t know who I am. Please, show me my True Self!” The teacher looked away, not responding. The man begged. Still, the Teacher was silent. Finally, giving up, the man turned to leave. The Teacher called to him by name. “Yes!” said the man, as he spun back around. “There it is!” exclaimed the Teacher.
Comments
Often persons use spiritual practice as an escape from the world, a getting away from themselves. In trying to discover who they really are, their very search leads them in the way decided upon by their false self.
The false self is the self-illusion that cannot see that you are already the True Self. The only reason you do not see clearly your True Self is you are not prepared to see It. You think you must find something to see It, when you must only lose the personal and social lies that keep your eyes closed to who you really are.
So embedded are we in illusions couched in partial truths, that the false self refuses to accept it is on a futile search to find the True Self. Rather, the end of the futile search, necessary to exhaust the false self searching for what it cannot find by searching, is itself the end that opens back into the beginning, before the search: what one already is.
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The True Self is you hidden behind the multiple veils of fabricated illusions: familial, religious, political, educational, economic, ...
You must even transcend religious truths that lead to the question, "Who am I, really?" Kick away the ladder of identities, then you will know the Self Who flies free in the Sky of Spirit. The True Self, in Christ, will continue to enjoy religion, but the True Self will be served by religion, not be a servant of it.
Suggested Reflection
For one moment drop everything you have been told you are and everything you think you are. Now, who are you, really? And, remember, this identity cannot be drawn from anything you have been told you are or that you have ever thought you are.
Rejoice!
See next page for details on OneLife Ministries, Brian's book An Ache for Union, and material pertaining to sources used in the writing.
Feel free to submit a query. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
See next page for Invitation to writer's contemplative village, purpose of OneLife, data on ordering author's book and upcoming devotionals 2008, and material on citations.
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