The Tao of Dark Sages - Chapter 2, Part 1

The Tao of Dark Sages
by Scott Bradley

Madam, yesterday you spoke of a transparent self. Could you elaborate a bit more on that?

Call me Sue-tzu, please. Sure, but first it might be a good idea to look again at what we mean by self. Would it be possible, do you think, to exist in the world without some sort of self? Perhaps it might be possible if we had a team of care-givers, like McMurphy in Cuckoo’s Nest after his lobotomy. Fortunately, Kesey has Chief smothering him out so he can forgo that humiliation. No, we need this self to function in the world. But why would we even need to ask the question in the first place? Because so much teaching denigrates the self. Everywhere you turn in the spiritual-growth industry, someone is bad-mouthing the self. And this is largely a consequence of confusing the ego-self with the more fundamental self. They throw out the baby with the bath water.

The fundamental self, as I said yesterday, is born of awareness. Through the self awareness is aware of itself. This is what is naturally so, so let us so affirm it. The ego-self, on the other hand, is the creation of the self. It is you and I believing ourselves to be something real and independent in ourselves. And that, as we all know, is the beginning of all our problems and all our suffering.

And the transparent self?

Oh, right. Picture, if you will, the fundamental self as a beautiful crystal sphere in which awareness sees itself and the world. This is the transparent self. This is ego-less self. This is the ‘you’ you’d be if you weren’t declaring independence and being queen or king of your own realm. And this is the self that you can be when you deny the ego-self the one thing it needs to survive — belief.

Can you describe something of what it is like to be this transparent self?

Before I do that, Scott-tzu, let’s dispense with this terminology. Let’s call it the self. There’s enough jargon out there without us adding more. ‘Transparent’ and ‘fundamental’ have served their purpose. And let us realize that when we talk about self we are not talking about a thing or even a concept. Self is a phenomenal experience without concrete existence. It’s a momentary expression of what lies far beyond our ability to understand. ‘You’ are this self and ‘you’ don’t exist.

I need to say, too, that when I say awareness creates the self and the self creates the ego and the ego creates identity, I speak in metaphors. For me, there can be no absolute understanding of the mechanisms of this incredible human experience. This metaphor is just to help facilitate the process of liberating my self from myself.

The experience of living as this self is, for me, above all one of infinite freedom. It’s a life brimming with thankfulness and affirmation. It’s life free from the enormous burden of a personal, finite existence. It’s life off the treadmill of possessing and losing, anticipation and disappointment, hope and despair. Death no longer concerns you because you have already died.

If you're interested in reading more from this series by Scott Bradley, go here.