I’m reading Waking up by Sam Harris and I’m not sure I understand the concept of self and illusion of self. Does that mean I’m not this thing inside my head that controls the body, but that I am in fact body and my brain and there’s nothing else?
Why is that important? How can meditation and ego death help with that?
Not a English native speaker but reading in English so I’m little confused.
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Illusion of self means that who we take ourselves to be most of the time is not what we really are. We all have an image of ourselves in our heads, and this image of who we think we are is constructed out of our memories, future hopes and aspirations, what we’re proud of, and what we’re ashamed of about ourselves. The thing most of us never seem to notice is that this entity that we take to be ourselves literally only exists through thought. It’s a figment of our imagination, and if we open ourselves up to the present moment, we see that what we really are is just an observing consciousness. No more, no less. That person you think you are? They only come into being when you start thinking about them, or when you’re interacting with others and start playing the role of who you think you are. But upon closer scrutiny, it’s really just an illusion, created from thought structures, memories, and beliefs.
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