The diamond heart of liberation is the realisation of no self. Belief in self is the central lie and cause of all human psychological pain, frustration and conflict. All spiritual practice ultimately must lead to this. The illusion of self is that which filters and blocks the  awareness, that we the organism are bound by, directly connected to, influence by and intimately a part of everything else. Self is directly opposed to this, it is the opposite of oneness it is fragmentation and separation. Enlightened beings know this but many convey the message in a ‘gentle’, ‘piteous’ manner, not realising or maybe forgetting that from their liberated perspective just how insidious, entrenched and heinously adaptable the thought pattern ‘self’ is.

     I think the problem. Is just that I think…problem. Thought is give far too much status by the organism. Though is picked up by our receiver the brain, we don’t have control over thought. Thoughts are just continuing to broadcast in like a radio reciever..The problem is that we believe thought to be true when it is just thought none of it is true. It’s like believing that a photo of an orange is in fact the orange. Thoughts are real in that they exist but the thought of something is just a thought a passing package of information it is not the thing, it is not true. For instance once you see the thought of fear, anxiety may still arise triggered by another thought or a situation that the mind usually associates with this kind of reaction, but you see it for what it is, it no longer has a self to refer to or lodge in. This realisation is the direct, effortless looking, it is not believing, conceptualising, idealising, thinking labeling or analysing, just looking and seeing with all of this out aside.

 You have to take no prisoners in this first step of seeing the lie of self-deception. The thought ‘self' is so incredibly resilient to all challenges, it is adaptable, and chameleon like it can take on any disguise and would prefer attack, denial and conflict rather than be ignored. It has prevailed for all this time after all. That’s why the gentle new age approach, as well as that of Eckhart Tolle has failed (as much as I love him), there is no room for sentimentality or pity, this thing is the plague and it will be the end of us all. The host needs to be aware of the infection.

I was watching Michael Moore’s film on capitalism the other night, he is right the core principles of capitalism would be cool without the ingredient of human greed and self-serving selfishness in other words without ‘self’. But there is no point in bringing it down without that fundamental structural transformation of the humans psyche. Self will still continue to wreak havoc on the planet but just in another form.