Self

What happens when the unconditioned meets the conditioned, when Oneness, the Self meets the conditioned self? In that meeting, what way will self express Self? Or in what way is the vertical dimension expressed in the historical dimension? Or how will your self embody Self?

Allow self to give way to Self; give way to openness, freedom, unknowing, pure consciousness. You do not know if you will descend into depravity or debased behavior. It is utterly out of your control. Basic trust seems to be needed to make the transition. One does not know if Self will express through substance abuse or other abuse, greed, manipulation, exploitation, decadence, or indulgence of some kind. Self expresses in these ways as well. Self embodies these manifestations as well , does it not? Self leaves it up to the individual. When choiceless awareness emerges, when it is realized, the conditioned self can give way to it and keep giving way moment to moment forever, or the conditioned self can at any moment regain its illusory sovereignty through identification, thinking it is permanent and separate, and believing in these thoughts and feelings of separateness.

At any point awareness in the individual can degrade into separation and delusion, and Self will allow it. Place your human fidelity on your thoughts of existing as a self-identity and focus on its survival and aggrandizement - the persistence and continuity of that self-image - and you will be back in the trance of separate self so fast it will make your head spin. Pure consciousness, authentic presence, the Self will quickly and quietly recede into the background.

Always and everywhere, Self will give way to self assertion. In my experience, at any point after Self-realization, Self will give way and concede to self-identification. This can be extremely confusing and disillusioning to one who has had an experience or many experiences of Self-realization. It can be a shock and induce a spiritual crisis in those whose beloved and Self-realized teachers have fallen back into the trance of separation, and behave out of conditioned personality. An example is when the teacher succumbs to the downward spiral of addiction.

~Akilesh