To Realize One’s True Nature is One of the Greatest Challenges
I don't exist. To be honest, I would not claim the existence of myself. After all, what is "myself"? In our world exists no "me", that could be seen in the mappings of our brains. So, scientifically, I don't exist. It is not a part of my brain. Every "I", that one experiences, must be an illusion. It is not an unchanging, particular, limited unit. There is only awareness of sensations and exchange with elements of the outside world. Who is reading this? Is it what is called "you"? Maybe, you're just a butterfly, dreaming of being a person.
Everything, that is known about the world, is known not through some objective bird view, but only through thoughts in one's mind. I know, who I am, because my senses pass on signals on nerves in my brain, where they spread in complex circuits, so complex, that something so wonderfully abstract, like a thought about my thought and my perception of my existence arises. The mind thinks, and this creates one's self, that thinks, that it thinks.
Everything happens not to a person, but in their mind. How does one even gets rid of all those thoughts and feelings, to have a clear idea, what the world is all about? Look around. You are what you see. There, where the material things are being touched by one's aesthetic perception, it is very individual. There is nothing that would exist "for real". Everything depends on the one who is looking.
Nothing exists anywhere. After all, the world around me is created in my thoughts by the process of thinking. But if the world exists inside of me, where should I exist? Apparently, my consciousness creates an illusion of existence somewhere. One could say, that the world exists inside of me, and I exist inside the world, like a dipole magnet. But for this magnet to exist, there is supposed to be a consciousness, that creates that magnet. And this consciousness wouldn't exist anywhere, because every "where" could be created only in one's mind, that would have no other place to exist, except a space, created by this mind... Where was it, before it created a space for itself? Inside of itself? But where?
Imagine yourself as candle wax. At the moment you are a part of a whole candle, at another maybe a drop, or even evaporated wax. If you, as a drop, would identify yourself with your shape - you would be in a lot of trouble, as you would have a problem with the identity. In fact, you would constantly die, because that shape - which defines your whole being - is in the process of changing. But if you understand that you are just wax, what can happen to you? Nothing. Though, it might be complicated for the wax to understand, what it really is. To realize your true nature is one of the greatest challenges. How do you even notice something, that has always been there? Even when there was no one to see it? That's why the only thing was would notice is its temporary form. And it thinks that it is that form. It prays to gods about remaining that form, but if you think of it, every wax drop has the same properties as the candle itself. A drop in the ocean of our existence is existence by itself.
My concept of freedom can only mean one thing: freedom from everything, that our minds construct. This freedom is named "I don't know". You know, "a thought once uttered is untrue". I would say, that a silent thought is false as well because in every thought there's utterance implied. As soon as we know something - we're slaves of our thoughts. But as soon as we don't know - we're free.