Self and the feeling of being inner self or “I” arises due to your association with the known and unknown. Self is neither eternal nor independent of its constituent cause and conditions in any way.

The Self arise due to self-conception or self-ideation through your identification or association with artificial ideas like name, age, gender, class, caste, nationality, religion, beliefs, eternal self, good, bad etc., thus making you rigid, insecure and conflicting with the present reality. Feeling of being inner self or “I” is due to your association with known and unknown affecting the cause and conditions of life processes.

Hence in meditation, due to changed cause and conditions of life processes, there neither any feeling of being inner self or “I” nor any identification with the artificially constructed Self.

Due to the Self, you are rigid and in conflict with the reality. Due to identification with the artificially defined ideas, you become pawn in the hands of authorities playing us-versus-them identity politics game to keep their flocks together for exploitation.

Due to feeling of being inner-self or “I”, the quality of your life experience diminishes and you are not able to explore your full potential to live life. Just like painful knee or upset stomach makes you conscious of it, so also, self-consciousness is symptom of some disorder in your constitution.

Self-delineation and self-conception due to your association with known and unknown giving rise to the Self and feeling of being inner self or “I” is self-ignorance.

Without the feeling of being inner self or “I”, you are fully aware knowing everything as it is in the right context. Without the Self based on you association and identification with artificial ideas, you are flexible like formless water.

Inner-Self Is Stress

An infant just born has no sense of self or “I” until a certain age. Infant is a natural and nature is original. The notion and sense of self is developed later in life during growth in order to interact with the environment and adapt with the society.

Self is acutely conjured for meeting the demands of environment in order to survive and flourish but self should not arise when not necessary. However, due to wrong upbringing and unhealthy conditions, the Self can become chronic and severe.

During the right practice of meditation, you are fully aware without the feeling of being inner self or “I” and you are free from the Self. Self is conditional and impermanent.

You Are Phenomenon of Awareness.

Nature and natural richness is original. Naturally you are the result of dynamic interaction of your indispensable constituent cause and conditions, including but not limited to your ancestors, your body, your processes of life, actions and effects of those actions, without which you cannot continue to exist in any way.

You are awareness, phenomenon of knowing arising due to your constituent cause and conditions. You become your actions and you continue in the effect of your actions. This is commonsense and as obvious as truth of earth, nature, pain, disease, old age and death.

Society Enforces Ideas of Eternal Inner Self

You are prematurely or chronically hypnotized due to association with artificial ideas and beliefs about who you are. This self-delineation divides you and gives rise to stress in form of feeling of being inner self or “I” and the Self based on artificial identities.

You get prematurely and chronically hypnotized by this idea of being independent eternal immortal inner self with after life or next birth. Some cultures may ridiculously believe that self enters the female womb during pregnancy.

Eternal reality of inner self” or inner being” or “Ego” or inner soul or inner spirit” etc.., independent of the process of life and actions, is a naive primitive idea sustained artificially by institutions of society and passed down from one generation to the next through cultural and customary beliefs out of fear of death and desire for imortality.

At an early age, society imposes you with artificial ideas like class, caste, religion, race, nationality and unproven ideas like past life, next life, soul, ghosts, after life, rebirth, reincarnation, supreme Creator and controller etc.

If you are brought up in such society, the idea of distinct inner self or being may seem real, and you may live and act through self-ignorance according to your identities.

You tend to accept the idea of reality of distinct inner self or inner being independent of conditions of life, if it is given to you by someone whom you trust, like or depend on, for example, parents.

You tend to believe just because everyone believes and not because you know. If you know that self is eternal or immortal, you may not fear death or keep suffering by holding on to life under some pretext or the other.

You Are Impermanent

You do not exist independent of your constituent cause and conditions, neither as awareness nor as the Self. You cease to exist with the death, decay, disintegration, dispersion and recycling of your constituent cause and conditions. This is practically known in all forms of life. There is no rebirth or after life.

Though becoming self-aware beyond the Self during meditation may seem like deathlessness due to freedom from the Self, neither awareness nor the Self can continue after life or beyond death.

Knowing the impermanence of life, you value it and live life authentically without getting attached.