MISCONCEPTIONS IN THE WAY OF ENLIGHTENMENT
When we begin our spiritual seeking, the idea that there is a higher Self to achieve is very inspiring and useful. We look forward to achieving an elated state and make efforts towards orienting our self with it. I used to meditate to receive light from my higher Self, embodying this higher state bit by bit, and honestly my own glorified idea of what I could become.
The idea to embody the higher Self can be helpful and even necessary for parts of the journey, but as our longing for truth grows more sincere, and we become energetically ready for Enlightenment, we must soon realise that there is no higher Self to embody, no higher state to achieve.
The higher Self is but a temporary outreach from the Self, the ONE Self. All manifested forms, whether material or immaterial, arise from, and as, the same substratum. This essential presence, background of Awareness, is the higher Self. It is always present and not something to reach towards.
You are already that which any “higher state” could possibly be.
“What you are looking for is already in you…You already are everything you are seeking.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
Ascension, enlightenment, is not about being launched into another dimension, a new 5D Earth or a higher Self state. It is not a shift from one form or condition to another. The process of ascension is more about clearing and removing blocks and conditioning which inhibit this ever present Awareness, rather than attaining some magical state. What is already there is simply highlighted.
“Realisation is not acquisition of anything new nor is it a new faculty. It is only removal of all camouflage.”
Ramana Maharshi
The idea that there is a higher Self to embody layer by layer, is but an extrapersonal projection, a creative imagination, a concept. In truth it is eternally present, here and now, not in a distant future. There is nowhere to arrive and nothing to reach out for, there is nothing new to acquire and nothing out of the ordinary to experience.
The movement of a “you” which seems to be ascending to a higher Self is an illusion, it is ahamkara, the sense of identity, of being a separate person. This is actually ego blocking the true Self to shine forth.
”As long as the observer, the inner self; the ‘higher’ self considers himself apart from the observed, the ‘lower’ self, despises it and condemns it, the situation is hopeless.”
Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Self is impersonal and permeating everything, not distant from you. It is creating the manifested and is itself unmanifest, the background of existence, Nondual Awareness and Unconditional Love, Bliss of Being. Sat Chit Ananda. Truth Consciousness Bliss.
To embody the higher Self is to simply BE. Not to be an idea of a higher Self, not to imagine how the higher Self would act or be. It is not about attaching ideas and attributes, creating a concept of what higher Self is, but to just BE aware of the body, be the still unbound presence permeating the body. This is how you embody the Self.
“Be as you are.”
Ramana Maharshi
Art by Simon Prades