Without self

 The self is impossible to hold onto and impossible to grasp because it ultimately isn't here. There really isn't any life here except Spirit which is selfless. The world in which there are many selves is not real. It is an illusion. There truly is no self, simply God or Spirit. It seems that the reality that we see as the world fights against the notion of only God, only Spirit to preserve itself. Even this war is illusory, there is no division between the world and God. God is quite simply quietly sitting here. God is things as they are and this is it. There is no other life, no other way of being. There is no other place God is. God is where and who we are. He is all that we are. Although this world and the war it holds against Truth are both illusory, as human beings we must seek Him with all our heart to be rid of this tiresome happenstance. We must utterly reject the self that is the manifest multitude of separate forms, in order to have peace within. Though this entire attempt is an illusion, it is a real manifestation of the human heart, and an eventual step it will take as it discovers the true nature of reality: the truth of Spirit and the falsehood of self and the world. Once we have drunk deeply enough of the pools of world thirst, we will find it unsatisfactory and we will seek something else to alleviate our discomfort. We will find that it is the world itself that makes us ill, and that we must divorce ourselves from our very selves to be rid of it. We must eliminate thirst at the root, which is the root of our self, We must gradually turn our attention away from self and turn it to God, until perception of self is completely eliminated. As we turn to God, we turn to righteousness. We turn to upstanding character which gives us the energy needed to dissolve our ego. It orients us in the right direction, pointed upwards towards the source of the universe, the infinite transcendent consciousness which I believe is likely generated in the crown chakra. In order to direct our energies upwards, we must restrain ourselves properly. We must pursue a gradual increase in restraint of activity that generates thirst and activity that redirects it towards fully awakening our being. We cannot properly awaken the crown chakra of Spirit if the rest of our body is not prepared. By taking on restraint we do so with our attention fixed on the eye of Spirit. As we increasingly restrain activity that generates thirst, we are gathering inspiration from God that modifies our behavior so that it awakens the energy centers of our being. This dual restrain/modification begins as the path of one cultivating virtue which is ethical behavior. This is the foundation of self-restraint and of controlling the mind so that God-realization may be achieved. This foundation gives the individual the ability to set aside the temporary gains they may make for the long term profit, which is essential for ridding oneself of ego. This path of cultivating virtue takes place on both the worldly stage of human society and on the astral plane in which we are a particle among millions. Here it is mental and logical that we cultivate virtue, it is necessary to successfully traverse the astral universe, the heart of which is I believe a Spiritual Sun that is some degree of God. This is the dry mental aspect of this beginning path of self restraint, the heart aspect is a cultivation of a genuine appreciation of other human beings as equals and a love for them and the society we all co-create.