The Two Selves

We have often mentioned the True Self and the False Self in these pages. This kind of distinction is very helpful in our pursuit of spiritual maturing, of the complexities of befriending our authentic, complicated selves. Nobody writes of the faces and peculiarities of these twins within the womb of every soul with the authority and sure-footedness of Richard Rohr who has walked with us through the pages of this book. While experiencing many glimpses of these two inhabitants during the past six months of my cancer news, one in particular will become, I feel sure, a useful and powerful blessing in the months ahead. She, the True Self, sees the false self as our ‘cosy image’ of ourselves – individual, distinct and separate from the rest of life, independent and self-assured, in charge of our own destinies because we have earned them, deserved them, merited them by our ‘good and religious deeds’ all our lives.

Therefore, we are terrified of dying. All our resources and motivations come from this lifetime and its successes, from this individual world, as though we would live here forever. Self-constructed, shallow and inwardly fearful, it seeks to hide the fact that this life is passing away – and there will be nothing left. Therefore, without vision or depth of thinking, death becomes the enemy. ‘The false self has no substance,’ writes Rohr, ‘no permanence, no vitality, only various forms of immediate gratification’. Everything goes into staving off the bitter day, clinging in desperation to every means of staying alive. The False Self knows nothing of the soul. How do you feel as you read these words?

Most of us belong to the community of Jesus that tries to protect us from going down that road which is a temptation for everyone. Even for Jesus. The final destination of the road less travelled is not a nihilistic mirage of nothingness, but an attractive wholeness – the intimacy and union with the Love that created us, and sustains us, and that is already at home in us. I will meditate on the deeper meaning of this mystery every day for the rest of my life. My True Self is the Risen Christ in me, the Spirit of eternal mercy, the God of unconditional love. Knowing this, how can one fear death. Nothing real is lost in death.

Death, in fact is the only gateway, the necessary pathway of pain to the glory for which we are created. We do not walk through those open gates alone. We are already utterly connected; not just connected but we have become the very essence of the Creator of life and death. There is no separation, as I will keep insisting to myself from now on; I am part of everything created. ‘Enlightenment, for an ocean-wave,’ wrote Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘is the moment the wave realises that it is water. At that moment, all fear of death disappears.’ (Living Buddha, Living Christ, Riverhead Books 1995, p 138). Only my False Self will die at the end of my human life: my real life, my True Self, already at home in everlasting love, will return to that space, place and playground that it once knew so well. Life does not really end, as so many of our funeral rites remind us; it simply changes form, Rohr assures us, and ‘continues evolving into ever new shapes and forms of beauty.’ Only since meeting you, dear Tumour, have I had the chance to meet the essential nature of my True Self. And to become, before I die, the fleshed reality of the Love called God.

From section 78 Dancing to my Death