The self in story - a narrative in observation

Uncovering the living context beneath the narrative sense of being allows a reintegration of that which seemed lost or disconnected and thus of its perception or experience of being alive. The mind-in-story operates as a device through which we have an experience of self limitation within which, identifying with the mechanism, as oneself, engages a virtual or distorted and fragmented rendering of being.

This, in narrative terms is where a Singularity seemed to become a duality, from a movement of expansion and contraction - and subsequent fragmentation - or to put it the other way, where a mind seems to come into a separated sense of its own existence, upon the death or loss of unified and undefined being as a direct consequence of the wish and exercise of power over. The experience of self division gives rise to the attempt to rule. The split nature of the mind is such that guilt and fear arise as protecting and controlling devices relative to the ongoing wish for power. The imposition of a narrative sense upon what is native lawful and unified, becomes an unconsciousness, because truth that is simple awareness at rest in its own nature, MUST be denied or reinterpreted as to be rendered either unrecognizable - or in terms that validate what is essentially wishful thinking, but identified as one's self in guilt, fear and confusion.

This leads to an upside down or inside out scenario in which guilt and fear of power become the mechanism of believed power; the power to kill Life or Mind - yet also the power by which to prevail - albeit temporarily - as a separate mind in its own private experience.

The essentials of drama are all provided, the bid for power, the betrayal or abandonment, the loss and the suffering, the attempt to regain or the will to revenge - the sacrificial horror of the killing of the innocent - the watering of the roots of guilt. The righteous identity that needs evil or guilt in order to self-validate over and against.

This drama re-enacts itself unending until something stirs beneath the mind that thinks it is as it thinks it is. Honesty is not bases on narrative, but on a direct awareness - as a discernment occurring outside the realm of apparent control. We yield to it - or yield our own will in order to discern, to the degree our mind is able to accept - and this depends on its current investment in its own story as its self.

There is a process by which to heal the mind of unconscious divisions that play out over and over as 'the human condition', but it is not the exercise of a personal will prevailing over others in assertion of power. Nor of depersonalising this will in mechanisms of state or indeed of applying mechanical models for controlling mechanical process. Indeed there IS no mechanical way to relate, communicate, listen and discern and recognize wisdom. Yet in some sense we do so - DESPITE the imposition of such a mechanical process. Life still happens DESPITE our best attempts to control or have power over it. No one but has some sense of true blessing in their lives, however dark or difficult.

How much MORE can be revealed to our appreciation if we desisted from persisting in what doesn't work in the insane attempt to make it work?

We do need a new narrative basis for what life is, what we are and how to live together in law that serves all - and thus finds welcome in the hearts of all. But I do not see that this can arise from the persistence of a blindness to the true nature of our own 'identity' or mind. "Truth will 'out" because the lie becomes too convoluted and untenable to maintain. What I would say is that truth may humiliate - but that is not true. We are humbled of our self-image and thus open to see and recognize ourselves in others.

But Truth is not humbled or made small - for it is the light in which we live and of which we truly are. Unless we abide in a truly connected sense of being, we get lost in our own story and defend it against our truth. All of the abilities by which we try to control life become useful to a willingness to embody life. It is simply evident that the mind is deeply habituated to an addiction to its own story.

I am indicating the basis for awakening to a basis for a unified direction, regardless of what others may yet be willing to allow or accept as their own learning. The only certainty available to us is of our being itself. That this is brought into question sets the stage for self-certainties of belief or assertions of power.

But when our beliefs of self-assertion are released or paused in even a little true willingness, we receive in place a clearer perspective. This is a step at a time undoing or reconfiguring of the mind to a true alignment. We don't 'do' this but let it be done through us as we release identity in reaction.

When discerning the correction for behaviour that is harmful to oneself or others, we do need a process of correction and not a process of guilt and punishment. Correction is the process of coming into our right mind. This needs to apply to all involved and not focussed only on the one who is identified in the role of transgressor. It is appropriate to limit lawlessness by whatever means is proportionate. But the old 'law' of revenge is the worship of sin amidst a luxuriating in blame, in full justification for hate and the indulgence of the sense of power in personal terms.

As long as we appease the mind of war, we can have no peace - but only a phony and manipulated peace that lives in fear and distrust amidst an isolated and chaotic sense of threat. This may serve those who claim to offer protection, at a price, but actually undermines a true integrity of being. Yet the Integrity of Being itself - which is innate to being - remains un-coverable to a willingness and desire to live from it.

Guilt and fear present the most blocking device for the prevention of trusting and following an innocent curiosity. Truth is not truly obscured, but only wilfully so. Therefore to be curious allows the noticing of the wilful intent - and thus the opportunity to release it in favour of what is uncovered in the wisdom of our being - in place of an often unconscious fearful reaction. This is simply a conscious responsibility for our own mind that is a capacity for immediate discernment and release of an unreal or imaginative thought or intent, without requiring a process of mental self-validation. In effect to reconnect with a true sense of being is the condition in which all else will harmonize.

But the seeking out of guilt will ALWAYS find it - even if it only exists in the mind of the inquisitor. What we seek we ALWAYS find, and what we are finding is reliable witness to what we seek. The experience of finding conflicted and unfulfilling outcomes IS a reflection of conflicting goals. Until we wake up to what we are choosing to give and receive, we will not recognize what we do, and so are in need of forgiveness for an error of mis-identification from which confusion must proceed.

The alternative is the reinforcement of such an error in the minds of both the judging and the judged. There is nothing ultimately fixed or locked down about our mind apart from our own decision - which as an expression of mind is innately unlimited. Resting in such being allows a different basis for outcomes than an 'isolated chooser' amidst an obstacle course of fearful penalties.



I wrote this into an article 'A story can be more useful than math' in the FT