We wander through the past, now, and future dimensions of time. The now/moment is the place we avoid the most, which is why we are deprived of many things. From love, peace, tranquility…in short, from life… Some say that the now/moment is a beyond-time sacred space and eternal. They say that pain, suffering, and sorrow are caused by wandering over the bad memories of the past and worrying about the future, sleeping with them, and getting up with them. These are true; I sense them more than I believe; I experience them. The divine transcendent self can only be felt in the holy and eternal now.
Our view of the past from now is not in the conditions of those times but through the eyes of the present. We often reconstruct or distort the past. We regret, blame ourselves, and suffer, saying that I wouldn't have done that if I had the current mind. Although we are wiser(!) now, we imagine the future mixed with anxieties and fears, as we are conditioned by the loser's and guilt's psychology. I floundered for many years after retiring in the whirlpool of this corrosive flow. I discovered that there are some ways out. I explain some of them below.
The mind never stops at the now. It is either in the past or in the future. The past and future in mind are not real but imaginary, distorted, or fictional. The essence of reality is in the present moment. The moment is the fact, felt, experienced, and lived. Now is eternal, out of time. Peace, happiness, and truth belong only to the present. That's why we may accept the mind as a guide that offers choices, but we should not drift away from now and from reality to its abyss with it.
We carry a separate "I" from our body, mind, emotions, impulses, behaviors, and ego… This self is just the observer, a non-judgmental witness, core. Try to sense this non-judgmental witness, which is not far away. In that case, you can free yourself from identifying with guilt, regret, anger, pessimism, pain, grief, aging, and death, as if you are them. This "I" in us is happiness, immortality, tranquility, and eternal life itself. He is our divine essence, the witness without judgment of all of us, including birth and death. There are ways to discover this essence. We must learn; we must try and experience.
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We are afraid to discover our core selves as non-judgmental witnesses. Because we are constantly conditioned to be judgmental. We have divided life and the universe into holy and unholy. We believed that God created everything, and we also thought God pushed the wicked. In my sense, everything is sacred. This is Tawhid/Unity.
Along with life, we have divided ourselves into two and many more parts. When we observe the terrible parts of others, the same as the parts we suppressed in us before, we label them enemies. Some become perverted by suppressing those parts. Repressed and not surmounted sexuality continues to be at one of the roots of many negative emotions and behaviors like aggression, anger, etc... If you pay attention, you can witness examples in yourself and others. It takes courage to see if the behaviors that make you disgusted, angry, or upset when you see them in others are a part of yourself too. This is necessary.
Our fragmented selves become whole when we discover the good and the bad in us, bring them to light and accept them without suppressing them. We realize that neither good nor evil belongs to our divine essence, and we reach our transcendent selves beyond good and evil. This is the way of peace, happiness, and holiness. When we see and accept the seeds of evil in ourselves when we see wrong in others, we are free from anger and hostility. We find the peace and serenity we seek so much and never find. What do they say to those who criticize a lot(?) "Turn around and look at yourself!"
Another way to reach our transcendent self is to see life as a theater play. To see that all our behaviors, thoughts, and emotions are realized as specific roles. As I get older, I understand that my whole life consists of games I play in dreams while I sleep. We played the role of a child, we played the role of a teenager, we played the role of a soldier, we played the role of being scientific… it goes on and on… We continue to play similar or different games. We play the games of beliefs, rituals, and cultural patterns transferred from outside and often imposed since birth. When you look at the player, not the play, that is, your essence, and understand that all life consists of roles, you will approach your sacred essence self. If you can reach this state, you will be freed from judgments and accusations and find peace. Of course, we will play, and of course, we will play well, but we will know that they are just games. We will not get carried away and become fragmented by roles that change over time, many of which are contradictory.
The transcendent self is different from the selves defined by psychology's theories of the self. They are ego theories. The transcendent self is the self that Yunus determines as "There is me inside me." Besides being beyond the ego, it is also independent of the mind, memory, emotions, senses, body, behavior, conditioning, past, and future. There is never any judgmental, rewarding, or punishing attitude of ego in him. It is felt in infinity as beyond time, in the now/moment. What is sense is what Mevlana calls "nothingness." But the ONE with the whole universe...
If good-bad, right-wrong...sharia, sects, ideas, ideologies, actions...past, future...and life in a state of sleep consists of games and roles constructed by the mind and ego, what remains? Now/moment...truth...witness without judgment: Transcendent Self/Core Self...Nirvana... Blessed are those who have attained this truth in life, awakened, enlightened...