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Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
The postulate underlying Scientology is the STATIC. Theta is the mathematical symbol used for static. Thetan is the “property of individuality” assigned to static. In short, a thetan is an individual static.
Hubbard differentiates static, theta, or thetan from matter and energy; but he does not differentiate it from thought. He says, “theta is thought, life force, elan vital, the spirit, the soul, or any other of the numerous definitions it has had for some thousands of years.”
We have,
SUBSTANCE = anything substantial enough to be sensed
AWARENESS = the capability to sense.
When we become aware of an object we gain consciousness that we can express as a thought. We become aware of the presence of a chair. This is expressed as a thought, “There is a chair.” This means that we are conscious of a chair.
CONSCIOUSNESS = awareness of substance
Hubbard talks about “aware of being aware.” But, this is basically having consciousness of one’s own thoughts.
Just like one can be aware of physical objects, one can also be aware of thoughts.
We may look at thoughts as “thought objects” that come in different forms. This means thoughts are sensed just like physical objects are sensed. Thought is a substance like matter and energy.
This differentiates AWARENESS from THOUGHT. Thought exists in the dimension of substance; but awareness is its own dimension. Consciousness results from awareness of substance. Here, substance means matter, energy, and thought.
We have a sense of “I”. This is sensing “individuality.” This individuality is made up of thought. We don’t give much attention to what this individuality represents, or what the source of individuality is.
The thetan, in Scientology, is an individual static.
Static is pure awareness; but thetan is awareness identified with thought of individuality.
Awareness can be exterior to thought; but Scientology looks at awareness “interiorized” in thought, and fashioned into individuality.
A person is pure awareness, that can be “exterior” to not only to the body, but also to the individuality. He is not the individuality called thetan.
The primary conditioning in Scientology is the identification of awareness with the thought of individuality.
This identification with “I” is the source of all human suffering. This is the basic-basic of Scientology.
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Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
The intention to harm is morally so unacceptable that when not fully confronted it gets buried deep in the psyche. It then causes anxiety and unhappiness when it is seen expressed by others.
Some of the forms of this intention are as follows:
(1) SELFISHNESS. One thinks of the satisfaction of one’s own desires without caring of the effects it creates on others in its wake.
(2) EXPLOITATION. Any action that exploits others for personal gains has the intention to harm underlying it.
(3) CAUSING PHYSICAL HARM. Any action that physically harms another and causes suffering.
(3) SEXUAL EXPLOITATION. This is a special instance of the above.
If you find yourself reacting to such intentions emotionally rather than responding to them rationally, do the following.
Some may find this remedy unnecessary because they have gone totally numb at some point, and have even flipped the other way in their mind.
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Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
Thought is commonly treated as something private, invisible, and abstract—a fleeting event occurring somewhere inside the brain. Yet this view may be too narrow. Thought can instead be understood as a subtle kind of substance: something that has form, presence, and effects, and that can be sensed by awareness. Matter is sensed through sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste. Thought is sensed through a different faculty: the mind’s capacity to notice, recognize, and assimilate mental content.
In this sense, thought is not identical with the mind. A thought is an object of awareness, while mind, in its essential nature, is awareness itself. Mind is that which can sense a thought, distinguish one thought from another, recognize its significance, and integrate it into a broader understanding. It is the knower rather than the thing known.
To call thought a substance does not necessarily mean that it is physical in the ordinary sense. It does not mean that one could weigh a thought on a scale or hold it in one’s hand. Rather, it means that thought has an experienced reality. A thought can appear, persist, change, combine with other thoughts, or disappear. It may be clear or vague, light or heavy, welcome or disturbing. It may carry images, words, memories, impulses, intentions, emotions, and conclusions.
A person can often sense the arrival of a thought before putting it into words. There may be an indistinct pressure, an image at the edge of attention, an emerging idea, or a feeling that “something is there.” With closer observation, that unclear impression can become recognizable: a memory, a worry, a plan, a judgment, or an unanswered question.
Matter is recognized through its characteristics: shape, location, movement, texture, resistance, and relation to other things. Thought also has characteristics, although subtler ones. It may be repetitive, charged, confused, insistent, distant, fragmented, orderly, or coherent. It may feel self-generated, inherited from experience, learned from others, or seemingly directed toward oneself from another person. Thus, thought can be approached as a field of experience that awareness can examine.
If thoughts are the objects being sensed, mind is fundamentally the capacity to sense them. Its basic nature is awareness: the ability to observe what is present without necessarily becoming what is observed.
This distinction is central. A person may observe anger without becoming angry. One may notice fear without identifying with it. One may recognize a judgment without being compelled to accept it as true. In each case, awareness creates a space between the mind and the thought.
The mind can perform several related functions:
When these functions operate freely, thought becomes useful material for understanding and action. A thought is then not an authority over the mind but information available to it.
Human beings often experience thoughts not only as self-contained mental events, but as influences moving between minds. In ordinary life, this is familiar in less dramatic forms. We can sense another person’s attitude from their expression, tone, silence, posture, and manner of attention. A room may feel tense after an argument, expectant before an announcement, or calm in the presence of someone composed. We sometimes recognize that another person is upset, suspicious, affectionate, or preoccupied even before they explicitly say so.
From the perspective developed here, such experiences may be understood as the mind sensing thoughts that originate beyond its immediate stream of self-conscious thinking. A thought projected toward us may register as an impression, an unexpected emotional shift, a sudden suspicion, an image, a phrase that seems to arise unprompted, or an awareness of another person’s intention.
This does not mean that every passing feeling is necessarily a message from someone else. The mind contains memories, habits, expectations, and emotional residues that can color perception. Careful observation is therefore essential. The point is not to replace one unquestioned assumption with another, but to become more attentive to the sources, qualities, and effects of thought.
With sufficient concentration, it may become possible to notice not only thoughts that seem directed at oneself, but also the general thought-patterns surrounding other people. An individual may be immersed in worry, resentment, ambition, grief, confusion, or hope. These patterns can shape the atmosphere of their presence. A receptive and observant mind may detect such patterns without needing them to be verbalized.
The greatest difficulty is not merely that thoughts occur. The difficulty begins when the mind identifies with them.
To identify with a thought is to lose the distinction between awareness and the thought being observed. Instead of saying, “I notice an angry thought,” one says, “I am angry,” and the thought becomes the apparent self. Instead of recognizing, “There is fear here,” one concludes, “I am helpless.” Instead of seeing a judgment as a judgment, one treats it as unquestionable reality.
Identification makes thought opaque. The mind can no longer fully sense or recognize what it has become fused with. A thought that is being observed can be examined. A thought that is being identified with becomes the lens through which everything else is interpreted.
For example, suppose a person is identified with the thought, “I will fail.” They may no longer see it as one possible prediction among many. The thought colors their perception of every circumstance. Neutral events become evidence of failure; opportunities seem dangerous; encouraging feedback is dismissed; and small mistakes become proof that the thought is true. The person is not simply having the thought—they are living from inside it.
An average mind is usually identified with many thoughts at once. These may include conclusions about the self, other people, society, success, morality, safety, status, relationships, and the future. Some are inherited from parents, teachers, religion, culture, or painful experiences. Others arise from repeated reactions that have become habitual. Because these thoughts are familiar, they often go unnoticed. They appear not as thoughts, but as reality itself.
Identification with thought is a source of error because it prevents direct observation. When awareness is absorbed into a thought, it cannot easily assess the thought’s accuracy, origin, limits, or consequences. It accepts the thought from within rather than examining it from without.
This can produce many forms of aberration:
The resulting errors may be intellectual, emotional, ethical, or practical. A person may misinterpret another’s actions, act impulsively, defend a false self-image, cling to resentment, or submit to a belief that was never consciously chosen. The more completely thought and awareness are fused, the less freedom the individual has in responding.
This does not mean that thought is inherently harmful. Thought is necessary for memory, planning, learning, communication, invention, and reflection. The problem is not thought itself but unconscious attachment to thought. Thought becomes aberrative when it takes possession of awareness rather than remaining available to awareness.
The resolution of identification lies in looking: sustained, concentrated observation of what is actually present. To look does not mean to analyze compulsively, condemn oneself, or force thoughts away. It means to permit a thought to appear clearly in awareness without immediately accepting, resisting, suppressing, or becoming it.
Concentrated looking begins with a simple shift:
Instead of being inside the thought, one becomes aware of the thought.
A person who is troubled by anxiety, for instance, may begin by noticing the exact content of the anxious thought. What does it say? What images accompany it? What sensation does it produce in the body? When did it arise? Does it repeat? Is it a present perception, a memory, a prediction, or an assumption? Who or what does it seem connected with?
As the thought is looked at directly, it becomes differentiated from the awareness that observes it. This differentiation weakens identification. The thought may still be present, but it is no longer the unquestioned center of experience. It has become an object that can be recognized, understood, and—if appropriate—released. For the laws of looking, please see Chapter 3: Resolving Anomalies.
Through looking, the mind regains its natural function. It becomes capable of sensing thoughts without being controlled by them, of recognizing influences without automatically absorbing them, and of assimilating useful insight without losing its own clarity.
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Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
Human suffering often appears in many forms: confusion, conflict, fear, guilt, resentment, purposelessness, and the feeling that life does not make sense. Beneath these experiences there is frequently an unresolved anomaly—something arbitrary, inconsistent, absent, misunderstood, or falsely identified. As anomalies are recognized and resolved, suffering diminishes because the mind no longer must defend contradictions, fill gaps with fear, or preserve ideas that do not fit experience.
Resolving anomalies is therefore not merely an intellectual exercise. It is a practical movement toward greater harmony between awareness, experience, understanding, and action.
An anomaly is anything that does not harmonize with the larger context in which it appears. It may be a fact that does not fit an explanation, a belief that contradicts experience, a missing piece of information, or a division imposed where no real division exists. An anomaly interrupts the natural coherence of understanding.
When anomalies remain unexamined, the mind often responds by avoiding them, rationalizing them, suppressing them, or building increasingly complicated explanations around them. This produces mental strain. A person may feel uneasy without knowing why; an institution may become defensive; a philosophy may become rigid; a culture may become divided. In each case, unresolved anomalies create pressure.
Suffering reduces when this pressure is released. The release does not necessarily come from forcing an answer. It comes from looking closely enough that the anomaly can be understood in its actual context. Sometimes the anomaly dissolves because it was based on a misunderstanding. Sometimes it leads to a correction of an earlier idea. Sometimes it reveals that important information was missing. In all cases, greater clarity restores a measure of harmony.
Several kinds of anomaly are especially important because they repeatedly create confusion in individual and collective life.
| Type of anomaly | Description | Typical effect |
| Arbitrary items | Ideas, rules, labels, or demands accepted without sufficient reason, observation, or context | Blind obedience, confusion, and dependency |
| Inconsistent items | Beliefs or claims that contradict one another, or that conflict with observable facts | Inner conflict, hypocrisy, and defensive reasoning |
| Missing items | Information, context, evidence, or experience that has been omitted or overlooked | Uncertainty, distortion, and false conclusions |
| Misconceptions | Incorrect interpretations mistaken for reality | Fear, prejudice, and ineffective action |
| Identification of awareness with substance | Treating awareness as though it were a separate thing, entity, body, soul-object, or possession, thereby producing a fixed “I” | Attachment, separation, fear of loss, and egocentric conflict |
An arbitrary item has no clearly perceived basis. It may be a command such as “this must be believed,” a social convention whose purpose has been forgotten, or an inherited assumption that nobody has examined. Arbitrary items tend to produce suffering because people are required to conform to something they cannot genuinely understand. What cannot be understood must often be enforced.
An inconsistent item divides the mind against itself. For example, a person may claim to value truth while refusing to inspect evidence that threatens a favored conclusion. A society may proclaim equality while maintaining practices that deny equal dignity. Such contradictions cannot remain peacefully concealed forever. They generate rationalization, moral discomfort, and conflict.
A missing item creates a gap in understanding. The mind often tries to fill that gap quickly, sometimes with speculation, superstition, or accusation. Yet the problem may not be that reality is incomprehensible; it may simply be that a relevant fact, context, distinction, or observation has not yet been found.
Misconceptions are false conclusions that become habitual. They may concern oneself, other people, nature, religion, society, or reality as a whole. A misconception can feel stable because it is familiar, but familiarity is not truth. When closely examined against experience, many misconceptions reveal their limitations.
The deepest anomaly is the identification of awareness with substance. Awareness is the capacity in which experience appears and is known. Substance refers to whatever is treated as a thing: a body, object, thought, role, memory, personality, soul-image, or identity. When awareness is equated with a particular substance, the sense of a separate and fixed “I” arises. This “I” then appears to own experiences, defend itself against the world, and struggle for permanence.
From this identification emerge many forms of suffering: “my” status, “my” beliefs, “my” group, “my” possessions, “my” injury, “my” future, and “my” death. The more rigidly awareness is confined within an imagined separate entity, the more reality is experienced as a field of threats and competing interests.
In any situation, one should begin with the broadest anomaly. This principle prevents attention from becoming trapped in minor details while the larger source of disorder remains untouched.
For example, if people are arguing over the correct interpretation of a doctrine, the immediate anomaly may seem to be disagreement about a sentence or ritual. But the broader anomaly may be the assumption that spiritual truth must be possessed exclusively by one institution, community, or authority. If that broader assumption remains unquestioned, resolving smaller disputes may only create new forms of conflict.
Similarly, a person may be distressed by a particular failure, criticism, or loss. The narrow anomaly may be the immediate event. But the broader anomaly may be an underlying belief such as, “My worth depends on being approved of,” or “I must be permanently secure in order to be at peace.” Addressing the broader belief can transform the meaning of many smaller events at once.
Starting broadly does not mean ignoring details. It means placing details in their proper setting. The broadest anomaly often organizes many lesser anomalies beneath it. When it is understood, the smaller contradictions may become easier to resolve.
Anomalies resolve when they are looked at more closely. This does not mean staring at a problem with anxiety or forcing an immediate conclusion. Genuine looking is patient, open, and disciplined. It allows the anomaly to reveal its own structure.
To look closely is to ask:
• What exactly is present?
• What assumptions have been added?
• What evidence supports this conclusion?
• What information may be missing?
• Is there a contradiction between this belief and actual experience?
• Is the problem being viewed too narrowly?
• Who is the “I” that feels threatened, certain, guilty, superior, or separate?
The resolution of anomalies is assisted by The 12 Aspects of Mindfulness. These aspects describe a disciplined way of looking that avoids premature conclusions and allows inconsistencies to disclose the missing information or hidden assumptions around them. The central attitude is to observe carefully, add nothing unwarranted, resist nothing, and remain with the anomaly until its relationships become clearer.
These are the laws of looking:
All anomalies are violations of harmony. Harmony does not mean superficial agreement, emotional comfort, or the suppression of differences. It means that elements fit together without arbitrary imposition, unresolved contradiction, or unexplained absence.
A harmonious understanding does not need to deny facts in order to preserve itself. It can incorporate new observations. It does not demand blind allegiance. It does not rely on gaps in knowledge to justify certainty. It does not divide reality into fixed and hostile fragments without examining whether that division is warranted.
This gives a practical criterion of truth: truth is indicated by the absence of anomalies.
This criterion does not mean that one must know every fact before recognizing truth. Rather, it means that a conclusion remains provisional wherever unresolved anomalies exist. A view may be useful, elegant, traditional, or emotionally satisfying, but if it contains arbitrary assumptions, internal inconsistencies, missing explanatory links, or contradictions with observation, it is not yet fully true.
Truth is not established by authority, popularity, repetition, or emotional intensity. It is established through increasing coherence: fewer arbitrary elements, fewer contradictions, fewer missing links, fewer misconceptions, and less need to impose a fixed “I” upon experience.
Monotheism can become anomalous when it aspires to spiritual hegemony—that is, when it claims exclusive authority over the spiritual life of all human beings. The anomaly is not necessarily the affirmation of one ultimate reality or one divine source. The anomaly arises when that affirmation is turned into a demand that all persons, cultures, and spiritual paths must submit to one particular formulation, institution, scripture, or religious authority.
Such a claim is arbitrary if it lacks universally available evidence sufficient to justify universal obedience. It is inconsistent if it teaches compassion while supporting exclusion, humility while asserting unquestionable superiority, or divine unity while dividing humanity into saved and condemned groups. It also contains missing items when it ignores the depth, history, experience, and insight of other traditions. Finally, it may reinforce the illusion of a collective “I”—a religious identity that defines itself against outsiders.
The result is disharmony. Spiritual life, which could deepen reverence, compassion, and understanding, becomes a field of competition and domination. The aspiration to possess truth exclusively can produce intolerance, coercion, and conflict precisely because it treats spiritual reality as an object that can be owned by a group.
Resolving this anomaly does not require rejecting spirituality, devotion, or the search for ultimate truth. It requires distinguishing the direct search for truth from the institutional claim to control it. A mature spiritual orientation can recognize unity without requiring uniformity. It can pursue truth without converting truth into an instrument of domination.
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Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
Everything that appears in the world can be said to be “being.” A stone is being according to the laws of matter. A plant is being according to the biological patterns encoded in its life. An animal is being according to instinct, sensation, memory, and adaptation. Human beings too participate in this universal order: the body develops through inherited biological processes, the mind acquires language and habits from society, and personality forms through the accumulation of experiences.
In this sense, being is not mysterious. Things exist and behave according to the laws of nature and the blueprints of life. They arise, change, interact, and pass away. Their forms may be complex, but they are still expressions of conditions: physical, biological, cultural, and psychological.
The difficulty begins when the human being mistakes a constructed identity for the one who is aware.
What a person ordinarily calls “I” is not a single, permanent entity. It is a composite. It consists of inherited tendencies, ancestral identifications, bodily characteristics, learned language, social roles, memories, fears, ambitions, wounds, loyalties, and impressions gathered through experience.
Someone may say:
“I am a parent.”
“I am successful.”
“I am a failure.”
“I am my body.”
“I am my memories.”
“I am my beliefs.”
“I am my nation, religion, profession, or past.”
Each statement identifies the self with some content of experience. Yet all such contents are conditioned. A body changes. A role changes. Opinions change. Memories fade or are revised. Social identity depends on recognition by others. Even deeply held convictions can be altered by new understanding.
The ordinary “I” is therefore made of substance in the broadest sense: material substance, mental impressions, emotional residues, conceptual structures, and acquired identifications. It is an organized bundle of contents. It is real as an appearance and as a practical personality, but it is not necessarily the ultimate subject.
There is a difference between the contents of awareness and awareness itself.
Behind the changing contents of the “I” lies the simple fact of awareness. Thoughts are known. Feelings are known. Bodily sensations are known. Memories are known. Even the feeling, “This is who I am,” is known.
That which knows these things cannot be identical with every one of them.
The person, understood as the ultimate mind, is pure awareness: not a particular thought, identity, sensation, memory, or image, but that within which all of these are perceived. The personal “I” is an object within awareness; the person as pure awareness is the witnessing presence to which that object appears.
This distinction is subtle because the constructed “I” speaks in the first person. It says, “I am angry,” “I am afraid,” “I am important,” or “I am lost.” Since this voice is intimate and continuous, it is easily mistaken for the person himself. But intimacy does not prove identity. A thought may feel personal without being the ultimate self.
The anomaly of being begins precisely at this point.
The first anomaly is the person’s belief that he is the “I” made up of substance.
The person, as pure awareness, is empty of bodily, psychological, and conceptual substance. Yet he identifies himself with what is perceived: the body, its history, its social position, its preferences, its memories, and its wounds. He takes the contents of consciousness to be the owner of consciousness.
This creates a fundamental confusion. The person says, “I am this body,” but the body is observed. He says, “I am this thought,” but the thought is observed. He says, “I am this emotion,” but the emotion arises, changes, and disappears in awareness. He says, “I am this past,” but the past survives only as present recollection and impression.
The human problem is not that the “I” exists as a functional pattern. It is useful to have a name, a memory, a body, and a practical personality. The problem is the claim of identity: “I am that.”
The moment awareness identifies itself with a particular object or condition, it becomes psychologically confined by that condition. If “I am my reputation,” then criticism becomes a threat to one’s being. If “I am my achievement,” failure becomes annihilating. If “I am my body,” aging and illness become not merely events affecting the body but assaults upon the self. If “I am my past,” then old impressions dictate the present.
The first anomaly is therefore a misidentification: the person mistakes the conditioned content of experience for the unconditioned awareness in which that content appears.
The second anomaly follows from the first. Having identified with the constructed “I,” the person assumes that this “I” must be eternal.
The desire for permanence is understandable. The personal “I” contains one’s cherished memories, relationships, knowledge, projects, and self-image. Because it is taken to be the self, its change or disappearance is experienced as a threat of nonexistence. The person then seeks continuity for what is inherently conditional and changing.
But the “I” is assembled from impressions and identifications. It is a process, not an unchanging substance. It evolves with the body, environment, education, relationships, culture, and time. To demand that it remain eternal is to demand permanence from what belongs to the realm of becoming.
This produces anxiety. The person tries to preserve a self-image that life continually modifies. He attempts to secure what cannot be secured. He seeks immortality for a psychological construction whose very nature is impermanence.
The mistake is not in recognizing continuity. There is continuity in memory, character, causation, and personal responsibility. The mistake is in converting continuity into absolute permanence. A river maintains an identifiable course, yet its waters never remain the same. Likewise, the ordinary “I” may show patterns of continuity while remaining a changing configuration of substance and impressions.
The anomaly is that the person, who is empty of substance as pure awareness, imagines himself to be a substantial and eternal object.
In Buddhism, emptiness does not mean that nothing exists. Nor does it mean despair, nihilism, or the denial of lived experience. It means that things do not possess an independent, fixed, self-existing substance of their own.
Applied to the person, emptiness means that the ultimate mind—the awareness that is aware—is empty of substance. It cannot be reduced to a body, a personality, a thought, a memory, a role, or an inherited pattern. These are appearances and conditions within experience, not the final identity of the one who knows experience.
To say that the person is empty is therefore not to diminish the person. It is to free the person from false limitation.
The opposite of emptiness is not simply “fullness.” It is the personal consideration, “I am that.” This statement gives substance to what is merely an appearance, a role, an impression, or an object of awareness. It turns a temporary condition into an identity.
“I am angry” becomes more than the recognition that anger is presently arising. It becomes an assertion that anger defines the self.
“I am inadequate” becomes more than a passing judgment. It becomes a substantial identity.
“I am superior” becomes more than a momentary success. It becomes a defensive structure that must be protected.
“I am this body” becomes more than a practical fact of embodiment. It becomes an absolute metaphysical claim.
The consideration “I am that” is the movement by which pure awareness becomes entangled in substance.
All suffering arises from the personal consideration, “I am that.”
This does not mean that physical pain, loss, illness, and hardship are imaginary. Pain may be real, and difficult conditions may require practical action, compassion, medicine, justice, or support. The point is that psychological suffering intensifies when awareness identifies with the changing contents of life.
When a painful thought is regarded simply as a thought, it can be observed and understood. When it is regarded as “me,” it becomes a prison.
When fear arises, there is fear. But when the person concludes, “I am fear,” the condition hardens into identity. When failure occurs, there is a failed effort or an unsuccessful result. But when the person declares, “I am a failure,” an event becomes a self-definition. When the body changes, there is change in the body. But when the person believes, “My being is destroyed because this body changes,” he suffers not only bodily limitation but existential terror.
The formula of bondage is simple:
“Experience” + “Identification” = “Psychological suffering”
The experience itself may be unavoidable. Identification adds the burden of personal ownership and permanence. It creates attachment to pleasant conditions and resistance to unpleasant ones. It makes every change appear to threaten the self.
The “I” seeks security because it is made of unstable materials. It seeks permanence because it is built from impermanent impressions. It suffers because it continually tries to defend, improve, preserve, and immortalize an identity that has no fixed substance.
The Vedic exercise neti, neti offers a direct response to this anomaly. The phrase means, “Neither this, nor that,” or more personally, “I am neither this, nor that.”
This is not an exercise in denying life. It does not require one to reject the body, abandon responsibility, despise emotion, or deny the world. Instead, it is a practice of careful discrimination between the person as awareness and the objects appearing in awareness.
One may observe:
Through neti, neti, the person loosens the false equation between awareness and its contents. The exercise removes one identification after another, not by destroying experience, but by refusing to make experience into an ultimate identity.
The body remains available for action. The mind remains available for thought. Memory remains available for practical life. Personality remains available for relationship and responsibility. But none of these needs to be mistaken for the ultimate person.
As described in Chapter 11 of Postulate Mechanics, the exercise is a means of dissolving fixed postulates of identity. Each time the mind asserts, “I am that,” neti, neti asks whether the asserted identity is truly the knower or merely something known. If it is known, changing, dependent, or describable, then it cannot be the final subject.
The exercise gradually shifts attention from the content of identity to the awareness in which identity appears.
To live free of the anomaly of being is not to become indifferent or passive. It is to participate in life without being imprisoned by its changing forms.
A person can care for the body without believing that he is only the body. He can fulfill social roles without being reduced to them. He can learn from the past without becoming the past. He can feel sorrow without making sorrow his identity. He can act responsibly without building an eternal self out of action and achievement.
This freedom has ethical significance. When a person is less occupied with defending the constructed “I,” he becomes more available to reality. He can listen without immediate self-protection. He can admit error without collapse. He can respond to suffering with compassion rather than with the fear that another’s condition threatens his identity. He can meet change without requiring that the world preserve his familiar self-image.
The anomaly of being is not that things exist. Things naturally exist according to the laws of nature and the blueprints of life. Nor is the anomaly that human beings have personality, memory, and individuality. These are natural formations.
The anomaly is the claim that a person is identical with those formations, and that they must therefore be permanent.
The resolution begins when the person recognizes the difference between what he is aware of and that by which he is aware. The constructed “I” can then be seen as a useful but temporary organization of substance and impressions. Pure awareness, empty of substance, need no longer seek eternity for what was never fixed in the first place.
In this recognition, the compulsive statement “I am that” gives way to the liberating discernment:
“I am neither this, nor that.”
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