It’s Not About Me

I was thinking about the ways I enjoy engaging with people and the ways I don’t. For instance I love playing music with others. That’s a big thrill and very enjoyable. The reason for this is because I disappear. There is no longer a me playing music with others. There is a blending, a unifying. If you want to play music well with others, you need to fit in. You need to blend. And this is wonderful.

There are many other examples of blending, of becoming one with others. Team sports can offer this experience. Any type of team experience can offer this experience if entered into fully.

Unfortunately many interactions with people go the opposite way. They reinforce the individuality, the person. They reinforce and strengthen the sense of a separate me. And these I don’t love so much. Most conversations are about one person telling the story of me to another person. And then they both agree that this story of me is either sad, happy, funny, wonderful or strange. And mostly they reinforce that this story of me is true. And then the other person tells their story of me and the process continues feeding on itself. Most conversations are kind of a “me factory”, designed to build up and reinforce the story of me.

These interactions are really not that enjoyable. You don’t have to be awake to notice that these interactions are limiting and confining. And it doesn’t really matter what the story of me is. If you’re awake, you’re fully aware that beneath this story of me is just the same complete oneness that is always here. But the majority of these stories are not about this oneness, this truth. They are about the illusion and reinforcement of separation and specialness.

And that’s why none of us really enjoy these conversations as much as we like the experience of blending, unifying, and dissolving the sense of a separate me. Isn’t this really what falling in love is about? Which “feels” better? Trading stories of me at a party? Or silently dissolving into the arms of your beloved?

And this is also why I enjoy the Enlightenment Experience groups. There is a falling away, a dissolving of the story of me. And this is where true peace, freedom, love and happiness are found. It is the absence of the story of me.

As long as there is a story of me, there will have to be suffering. To have a story of me without an internal sense of limitation, incompleteness and suffering is impossible. And yet this is what we actually try to do. We are so attached to our story of me that we do everything we can to make it a happier, healthier, more enlightened self. What we resist like crazy is letting this story of me go completely, even though deep inside we know this is the only way to health, happiness and enlightenment.

Any time I feel even the most subtle sense of discomfort, I know a story of me has arisen. And the only solution, the only return to wholeness, peace, love and happiness, is dissolving that story of me. So I do. And that’s why I’m happy. It really is that simple. It’s our fierce attachment to the limited, individual, separate self we believe we are that stands in the way of this wholeness, completeness, freedom, love and happiness that is always here.

You may see a me here or project a me when you read this, but my experience is quite different. I no longer find a me. There is just this infinite space that includes all things and is limited by none of them. There is continuous and unchanging freedom, peace, love and bliss. And yet there is no person experiencing this.

I’m sure for many this might sound quite strange. How can you experience freedom, peace, love and bliss without a person to experience them? Freedom from the person, the end of the story of me, is the only way this great freedom, peace, love and bliss can be experienced.

It’s not about me. It’s not about my story. There is no identity here. That’s why I’m free. That’s why I’m happy.