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Home | Self Improvement | Spirituality 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 are not always willing to see that our idea of ourselves is a kind of ghost because we really believe that is what we are. We may wonder, Who am I if what I think I am is something insubstantial and not real? What is here besides the ghosts of my self images? There is of course a strong sense that we do actually exist, and that we are real. But where does this sense of existence and reality come from? Does it come from these ideas about oursleves, or does the sense really existing come from deeper within our being? It can be difficult to distinguish since the image and the realness can both be here at the same time, and our ego's idea of ourselves can simulate that deeper sense of realness we all naturally have. 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. A new image or thought about ourselves is constantly arising to replace the last thought or image. And sometimes we aren't thinking about ourselves at all. So all our self-images images and identifications are not very real. They are like ghosts in our minds. How about the pure sense that you are real right now? Does that sense come and go? Do you ever really have the opposite sense that you don't exist or never existed? This sense that you do exist is more true than any of your ideas about yourself because it is always here. You always exist, but the thoughts in your mind about yourself are like ghosts. What you are has never been contained in your self-images. Even when your ideas of yourself fade away, like images in a movie, what you really are is always still here . This real you is the you that matters. What would it be like to be more curious about this real you than you are about the false ghosts of your self-images? What are you really? of? What is the real you like? What does it really want? What can and can't it do? These are great questions to explore, but remember that the real answers are still not to be found in any ideas about yourself. Look in the simple sense that you exist for the truest answers Article Source: http://www.articlewheel.com
Well known 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 experience his teaching on endless-satsang.com.
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