Our Self Image Is a Ghost

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Our Self Image Is a Ghost - By: Nirmala, Posted on: 2007-08-16

We think of a ghost as a piece of us that continues to hang around after we die, and haunt the places where we lived. What if there are already ghosts of yourself ? What if you are actually a ghost, or at least your self-image is a ghost?

As we usually think of them, ghosts are insubstantial forms that come and go. They are not quite solid or real, and most people can't see them. And yet how substantial or real are our images of ourselves-our ideas about who we are? If you have an image of yourself as an attractive person one day and as an unattractive person the next day, how real was either image? And can other people see your self image? What does it mean if you have a self image of being unattractive and someone acts attracted to you anyway? Maybe they can't see your self image. Maybe your self image is a kind of ghost.

We may not be willing to learn that our idea of ourselves is not real because we are used to thinking these ghost like images are who we really are. We end up wondering, Who could I be if what the image I have of myself is not real? What else exists here besides these ghostly self images I take to be myself?

We do exist, and we are real. But does this innate sense of our reality actually come from the image of ourselves? Or does our sense of existing come from someplace deep within our being? It's hard to determine when the image and the sense of realness are both present at the same time, and our ego takes on that deeper sense we have of being real.

One way to distinguish what is real from what is not is to ask yourself how real your ideas of yourself are. One measure of how real something is, is how long it lasts. The more real something is, the longer it lasts. How long do ideas about yourself last? They come and go (like a ghost in a ghost story) and don't last very long at all. A thought is often over so quickly that we can't remember a moment later what we were just thinking.

Our images we have of ourselves are always changing and passing away to be replaced by another idea or picture of ourselves or even a thought about something else. So those ideas or identities we have must not be very solid and real. They are just ghosts in our minds.

What about the simple sense of your existence? How often does that come and go, or in other words, how often do you have an opposite sense-that you don't exist? The inner sense that you exist doesn't come and go and is more real than your ideas about yourself. You do exist, but your self-images are just ghosts. You are not contained in your identifications or ideas about yourself. You are still here even when your images of yourself fade away, like the ghostlike images in a movie.

It is the real you that matters. You can become more curious about this real you than you are about the false ghosts of identity. What is the real you made of? What is it like? What does it want? What can it do? These are rich and meaningful questions to explore, but remember that the real answers are not to be found in your ideas about yourself. The truest answers can be found in the simple sense that you exist.

Article Source: http://higradesearch.com

Well recognised spiritual teacher, Nirmala has been offering satsang and one-to-one spiritual mentoring for ten years. He offers free spiritual books and many more ways to explore his teachings on endless-satsang.com.
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