The Tao of Dark Sages - Chapter 10, Part 3

The Tao of Dark Sages
by Scott Bradley

I have done both and it leaves me with pure experience, or pure awareness, I guess you could say. There is only emptiness. And awareness fills that void. And all these things to let go? They are all the same. If I let go of anything completely, there can’t be other things to which I still cling. It’s a way of being, and if you are that, then, well, you are that. Does that make sense?

Absolutely! Though we might have a list of things to let go of, in the end, there is only letting go. And it’s the big things like life and death and identity that bring this home because they go to the core of our problem. Which is...?

Ego-identity?

How so?

The only reason we cling is we believe there is someone to cling and something to cling to. If I have no separate ego-identity — no belief in my own existence—then there is no self which can cling and no ‘other’ to cling to.

Yes. And we might add, there is no need to cling. Because clinging is always an attempt to give substance and support to the ego-identity. We cling to life and fear death because we believe we have an existence to lose when, in fact, we have nothing of the sort. I’m going to quote Mitchell again, from the same Chapter 13: "What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear? Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don’t see the self as self, what do we have to fear?"

So, "Abandon hope all you who enter here!" Isn’t it ironic, the inscription over the gate to Milton’s hell, stands over the gate to our heaven!

Let’s leave it there. Don’t forget your "homework." See you tomorrow.

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