How can I be myself? A real nonsense question. How can I be who I already am? Better to ask how I can not be? What is it that makes me feel so "beside myself"? What it is that makes me think I am not already me? The answer to this delusional dilemma, of course, is to realize that the question is absurd (and any action based on it equally absurd). For how implies action or doing, and a correct re-statement of the question thus becomes, "How can I do my being". Now that's obvious nonsense, not to mention redundant ( some have called it "putting legs on a snake"). 

 

How so? Simply because my doing is a particular expression (mode, form or manifestation) of my being. In terms of creative energy, my doing, as kinetic energy (peripheral and superficial), is finite, whereas my being, as potential energy (central and essential), is infinite. As such, doing is personal, localized, particular, specific, relative and finite; while being, by definition, remains impersonal, universal, in particular, nonspecific, non-relative and absolute. Moreover, if doing is moving (active and partial) and being is quiescent (still and whole), how could the former ever beget the latter? Quite clearly, it can't, and salvation from this vicious circle can only come from self-exhaustion or self-realization. 

 

This dilemma is really the mental equivalent of a dog chasing its own tail. The dog has turned back on itself (inside-out, as it were) to such an extent that his tail now seems to be something separate and apart from being. This because his senses report an apparent gap or space between his nose and his tail. Thus arises a very clear and real sense of physical separation which the dog, quite naturally, acts upon. He's simply trying to close the gap between himself and what he has come to see and feel as separate from and other than himself.

 

Round and round he goes, and where he stops we all know -- in a state of self-exhaustion, and, ultimately, self-realization of his own "tail"(akin to the old Red Foxx story of why dogs sniff each others tails). Of course, in the unlikely even that dog actually does catch and bite his own tail, his realization of original oneness will come much sooner and more shockingly. Still and all, the most likely outcomes are: (1) a simple exhaustion of his efforts and natural relaxation back into his own being; or (2) sudden realization of the true nature of both himself and his predicament (i.e. "Know the truth and the truth will set you free".,etc). 

 

Well this is not exactly what man's present state of mind is doing to itself? Has It (I/self/subject/center/conscious mind - nose/front end/cerebrum?) not twisted (or turned) back on itself (you/other/ object/circumference/subconscious mind -tail/hind end/ cerebellum?), and so created a psychological "gap" and sense of separation similar to the one the dog senses (a kind of mental mobious strip in which twoness is only apparent - where one loop simply loses sight and sense of its oneness with the other loop)? 

 

The solution, in this and all similar cases of optical/mental illusions, is the same as for the dog -- to stop chasing and be still. For it only the constant circular movement (as with the dog's spinning) which creates sufficient spatial disorientation (dizziness) to cause us to lose sight and sense of the whole of Our Self (I/Thou). In order to do this, however, we must first drop all partiality. We must move to the middle. We must stop choosing one (me), and denying the other (you). 

 

For it is only our partial perspective, our limited judgement as to personal good (like) or evil (dislike), that puts the "english" on our mental world and so sets our mental gyros spinning wildly out of balance. Our answer, is thus a return to a conscious awareness of the Ground of Being-- Our Axle, Our Center, Our Whole Self, Our Joint Being, as it were-- to reacquaint ourselves with the Center of the Cosmic Merry-Go-Round, where all movement ceases and Peace reigns, and Absolute Delight abides.

 

(Note: I asked my wife if she could relate to the idea of "trying to be herself", so that I could discuss the idea of a "mental tail chase" and she said she couldn't (sees pretty sure of herself, at least egocentrically). Then in trying to re-phrase the question into one she could relate to (How can I be Good? How can I be honest? How can I be unselfish? How can I improve myself? How can I change myself? How can I find myself? How can I find satisfaction? How can I fulfill myself? How can I be true? How can I Love? How can I find permanent Happiness? How can I find Peace? How can I have Eternal Life? How can I be saved? How can I live according to God's Law, How can I be made Perfect? How can I have Faith? How can I Be the One God intended me to be? How can I be the perfect image and likeness of God? , etc., etc), I realized that all such questions of self-development (or growth, perfection, knowledge, awareness, realization, actualization, or you name it) are always the same simple question. They are all really boil down to "How can I be myself", in another guise, and their answer is always, the same "Know Thyself"; all variations on "Who Am I? and all answered by I AM THAT I AM (The True Nature; Self-Existent Being: the One in the Many; ALL in ALL) 

 

Copyright, RFHay, 1992