Searching for Chimeras

Mike,

"I have been meditating for a while. Trying to find truth and myself. I recently came to the point where no matter where I look I don't see myself and I can't find myself. I feel extremely empty and its kind of scary. Like being on the edge of a cliff and feeling like I could fall off or in at any moment. How does one learn to cope with this?"

- Ben

Ben,

I don't much favor this "searching" or "trying to find" yourself, or as they say in traditional Vedanta based yoga, "Searching for the True Self." I once wrote a poem on this topic:

"Who am I?"

Such a strange question,
uttered endlessly, by
weekend seekers of the Lost Psyche.
Feigning amnesia,
they blather on about their "True Self,"
their Grand Soul lost somewhere outside their petty lives,
hidden away and blocked by fleeting fleshy passions,
stolen away by the finite soma and mundane mind.


Their Real Self: pure, eternal, blissful, free, true, wonderful;
right around the
supernatural corner,
waiting for them like a blind date.

You know who you are!

You are a unique body - interdependent with the watery world;
a boxcar of moving memories - a rich history;
known from the fruits of your work;
meshed with some family, holding somebody dear;
Somebody - unique as the fingerprint of your DNA;
named, spoken for, listening, and ...
Your search for "yourself",
your anxious questioning,
makes no sense.

A stale mantra,
a face before you were born koan:
"Who am I?", sterile, silly,
Pointless.
Yet, following an
irrelevant spiritual advisor's advice,
You try to figure it out, for hours and weeks,
befuddled, awed by your confusion, thinking
It's your puny powers of meditation or belief or determination
that keep you from
discovering
The Holy Grail of the Genuine Self.

You know who you are!

You might want to change who you are,
or forget who you were,
or tell others about who you are,
or learn why you get tricked into asking yourself this foolish question ...
but those are quite
different issues.

- Mike Garofalo, "Who am I," he asked himself,June 11, 2006
Above the Fog

I don't think meditation is a good way for finding truth. Philosophy is better.

So, what is sitting or standing meditation good for? In my opinion: calming the mind, resting, doing nothing, just sitting, lowering your heartbeat and blood pressure, sitting up straight, cultivating an Inner Smile, enjoying your garden ...

If the meditation techniques you have been practicing for awhile are just producing stress, anxiety, fear, angst, bewilderment, dread ... then stop that style of meditating. I suggest, instead, for you to get up at dawn, face the sun and say a Navaho prayer, and then go for a long walk.

Some meditation techniques are intended so make you realize that you are or have no eternal self, no substantive Ego, no everlasting soul, no True Self. Did not the Guatama Siddhartha Buddha or David Hume think this way? There is just Everything That Is and you are part of the What Is Now, a complex series of interrelationships, a bundle of sensations, a contingency with consciousness, impermanent at best, empty at the core, a snapshot out of the Great Video of Becoming.

There is a sense of "being true to oneself," authentic living, and remaining true and steadfast to your chosen values and chosen character. Many people live by the rules, customs, beliefs and fashions established by others. They have few core values, practices and habits freely chosen by themselves. I still think this is different from "finding the true self" spoken about by mystics and spiritual adventurers.

Embrace the fullness of the world, its beauty, its complexity, its power ... forget about searching for something or finding something. Everything is right before you.

As for the Cliff, yes, it is there. Michael Jackson and thousands of others fell off the Cliff this past week. In a snap of your fingers - you could be dead. To cope with this: courage, forget about the fact, move on, follow the path of peace, work diligently, do good, hike up to a cliff, taste the wild berries, and kiss your sweetheart today.

Mike