The aim of work on self is dis-identification. The means is impartial observation of self in my life. It is clear from doing this work that identification is sleep, loss of will, slavery to habits, a loss of my capacities.
It therefore follows that to become less identified is to achieve greater fulfillment and satisfaction, does it not? It does not. Being unidentified, unidentified and therefore being, is true, when it is true, in the moment it arises. And then I fall into identification again. But not as before. Because now identification is not innocent, not easily justified, not satisfying but deeply disappointing.
Falling into a habitual identity is contracting, painful, shameful. The reliable motivations of sleep slowly wither leaving…questions, doubt, disenchantment, inaction. When spontaneously present, these issues have no substance, they are swept away by responsiveness to the possibilities of the present. But when I fall, I do not have a comfortable, self-indulgent, self-important self to catch me.
Once I have left the matrix often enough, I cannot go back. I cannot stay where I am; the pain is too great. I can only go forward. May a way forward be shown to me.