The False Self Is a Costume Over Your Life Force

And if we try to control the external world, or we try to control our emotions, or we try to control our thoughts, we will suffer because we will over and over recognize that we can't. And we have this expectation that we can, and then we will beat ourselves up and punish ourselves that we aren't able to meet our own expectation. The power and force and energy that moves and enlivens our humanness, and then the self, the false self, is a costume that we literally put over our own life force and energy. That's all that's dying.

And it doesn't really die. I mean, it dies. It's actually always dying, but it always comes back. So it's not so dramatic.

Sounds very dramatic. It's not so bad. But what it is doing, what we are doing in that process, is we are seeing that it is innately not true. Meaning, the self is based on lies.

You know, basically, the self is saying that it exists independently and that it is controlling the body, it is controlling the mind, it is controlling behaviors, it's controlling the goal. And if you don't reach your goal, then it's a bad self. And if you do reach your goal, it's a good self. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's all not true. My experience is, by and large, is that most of things happening in life are out of our control. And that's just how it is. And what we can control is we can control our relationship with the world.

We can control our relationship with our emotions. We can control our relationship with our thoughts, but we can't control our thoughts, and we can't control our emotions, and we can't control the external world. And if we try to control the external world, or we try to control our emotions, or we try to control our thoughts, we will suffer because we will over and over recognize that we can't. And we have this expectation that we can, and then we will beat ourselves up and punish ourselves that we aren't able to meet our own expectation.