Mark Ulyseas – Searching for the Self

Mark Ulyeas Searching for the Self LE Mag January 2017

Searching for the Self – Mark Ulyseas

There are those who prefer to be lost in a world of eternal stimuli, a castration of the mind that turns one into the personification of ‘AI’. And in this nebulous world one exists willingly entangled in an incestuous web, unlike those that prefer to break free from the savage… a savage mesmerised by coloured beads… to seek the meaning of the Self, its existence in the menagerie of everyday mindlessness.

In this seeking one changes partners, clothes and sometimes even country. This is good for such actions help peel away the layers of self-consciousness that wraps each of us in a self-imagined world. But this is merely the first step.

Many years ago on the isle I had met people searching for the Self, eagerly consorting with the unknown or the forbidden in an attempt to reconcile with the all-pervading nothingness that gripped them. Alas, the intentions were right but the direction was directionless.

How could one tell them that ‘direction’ is not a physical plain, a tangible thing that represents an end in itself… but that it exists in a dimension of one’s own making, where truth reigns supreme and love locks the doors to hatred and anger.

The sale of self-help books continue to rise above expectations. Perhaps this is a sign that we have taken a wrong turn even though our intentions are right. That we seek to find answers in the words of others, in the minds of others and in the directions of others, whilst, sadly, ignoring the elephant in the room…one’s own soul that extrudes a yearning to be acknowledged for its own worth and seeking to be rejuvenated by revelation and not celebration in the physical world.

Another year has dawned upon us by a time of our own making…the numbers created by us to regulate our lives, to bring coherence to the ebb and flow of life and death. The futility of this regulation is apparent in the growing numbers that refuse to be governed by a time of our own making.

It is heartening that the number of people attempting to break free from the tangibles of a physical world are growing every year. How wonderful this is for it gives us hope that someday we will all be free of the savage that resides within and become true citizens of the Universe.

I shall leave you now with these words of André Gide from his book, Fruits of the Earth

“Do you think that at this precise moment you can feel to the uttermost sensation of life in all its power, completeness, and immediacy, unless you forget all that is not life? The habits of your mind hamper you; you live in the past and the future, and you perceive nothing spontaneously. We only exist in the here and now; in this momentariness the whole past perishes before any of the future is born. Moments! You must realize the power of their presence. For each moment of our lives is essentially irreplaceable; you should learn to sink yourself in it utterly.”

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om

 

© Mark Ulyseas

 

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