Not I, Not other than I: The Life And Teachings Of Russel Williams

by Russel Williams

The Ego Self only exists through the unsatisfactory. It does not live through the satisfactory because that involves union. The self requires separateness, to prove its existence. This is why many people can’t sit down for long; they have to get up and be doing, to reinforce the ‘I am’. This is the discomfort zone. On the basis of unsatisfactoriness, we seek more unsatisfactoriness, because if we lose that, we lose self. This comes from not knowing what self really is. The self is trying to reinforce something which it is not. It doesn’t realise that in a sense it is not a thing at all. It is a spirit. That spirit covers everything. Therefore it can’t be separate. It can’t take the aspect of ‘I and another.’ Whatever it sees is part of itself, of the oneness. To a degree, in the conditioned area, the self is frightened of this oneness because it means that the separate I does not exist. It means death. The I is afraid of dying. But there is nothing to fear. The dying only takes place because there is a separate one. When there is the realisation that “I am deathless”, death cannot take place. The self does not need a body any more. That is its innate knowing – although it’s not strictly knowing, but appreciation. Thought-knowing doesn’t exist there, because there is no thought in the not knowing. Once that realisation dawns, the self can’t go back to separation any more. It realises that bodies will always involve separation, but it is not the body. It is the consciousness...