Man's Most Important Mistake

 There are three interrelated dimensions of my self: The changing self, the spiritual self and the social self. The physical, mental, and emotional aspects of my self are changing experiencing pleasures and pains, ups and downs. The spiritual self is unchanging, unaffected by the changes taking place in the changing self. The social self, the cultural self, is the relational self having a net work of different relationships helping me grow but also conditioning my changing self.The intra-personal self and the inter-personal self creates varieties of colorful experiences, pleasant and unpleasant.The spiritual self is the being  self-the embodiment of love, compassion and bliss. When I am in the becoming zone, I experience the changing self. When I am in the being zone, love , compassion and bliss arise on their own. The changing self is the doing and possessing self creating bondage in me. The spiritual self is the freeing self, the universal self. When I practice mindful awareness the clouds generated by my changing self slowly slowly fade away and I experience blissful openness, clarity and expansion of my consciousness. When I relate to others mindfully, I experience connectedness, compassion and gratitude. During that time, I am more in the being zone while I am in the doing zone. According to my experience, the being self, the spiritual self is experienced in the doing zone when there is no bondage created by my expectations.The challenge is to remain awake when I go through self-created clouds of suffering.

This is an ongoing journey fro me and I love it.
Jagdish P Dave

There is one I.  I is always changing, not static.  That I am constantly changing doesn't mean there are many I's.  I can be many different ways, display many different moods and behaviors, have many different wishes,and they are all different facets of one I.  It may seem that I has parts, some of which I like and some I hide, but I is one.  I became aware that real I is whole in realizing that I and everyone is capable of the full range of human experience and behavior.  We are each generous and selfish, caring and murderous, forgiving and petty, alive and suicidal, gentle and rapish, honest and duplicitous, embracing and racist, integrated and fragmented.  I develop and live out different qualities at different times, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, sometimes by choice and sometimes not.  I still am all of those qualities.  I am the whole package.  There are no separate I's.  At the deepest level I am the consciousness that is aware of all these aspects and orchestrates the whole symphony.  I know that I have touched the real I when I hold this awareness.

Indeed a tough one to understand and put into practice. The moment "I" read the passage the question arose which part of my "I" wants to change? There are no immediate solutions to these puzzles but the practice of Vipassana provided some link : when everything is arising and passing away, so are the "I's". Having said this from a mind level the experience came while having tea. Each sip felt different and changed the taste with passing thoughts..the first one was "aha',  towards half cup it was about finishing quickly and getting on to the day,  also it meant a lot whether it was being shared with someone or it was in solitude. Upon deeper search within it was revealed that the wishes, desires that come up are arising to fulfill the Ego attached with each "I', which in turn will give rise to craving and aversion, depending upon the resultant action. Thus, the whole cycle continues. Hence, for now,  for me its difficult to catch the real one as that too will pass away. So the practice under cultivation is being very authentic to each arising "I' and holding it with love and compassion. At those points of contact with the "I' when its accepted "as is" and loved, something heals within, the mask peels off on its own, effortlessly.