The "-Ist"

There is no self, said a Self to itself…
that is what the scriptures say, so it must be true
From all things interconnected all things rise…
so that Self dissolves itself in this interconnected goo

How do you know that another self asks…
Have you realized that you don’t exist?
Then who is asking these questions…
are they rising from this interconnected mist?

The first self bristles…
and then hurriedly replies
Don’t you understand the scriptures? The Self is a big lie!

The second self asks…
Then who is reading the scriptures and who has heard those lies?
The first self responds…
No one has read the scriptures and no one heard those lies
We are simply ghosts you see
we simply interconnectedly dissolve and rise

The second self scratches his head
and asks in surprise
If no one exists really at all
then from whence rises this I?

And then he continues to think about it…
You or I can only think and articulate our thoughts
because we accept that “I am” …
and something else naught!

In order to know "I am"
I surely have to be
Because if I do not exist
How could I even start to see

In order to know that
that which "I am"
I have to dissolve…
All those things that interconnectedly rise and fall

Where do I know these things…
these interconnected things?
I see them in the field of mind…
Jetsam and flotsam, in a constant flowing stream

When the debris has been dissolved enough
that which remains
surely that must be that "I"
the “I” that “I am”

Published previously on Medhajournal.com