Self: one hand clapping

When one inhabits that exquisite state of pure undifferentiated awareness found in meditation there is no Self: there is only awareness. Self is a natural and necessary product of the differentiation made inevitable by consciousness. Where there is consciousness there is Self. Because the focus of awareness which is consciousness exists as a center to which "things" are external, the external "not-self" of which one is conscious gives rise to and defines Self. Self is the sound of one hand clapping.

Nothing is external to Awareness. Awareness has no inside and no outside and no Self.

It is difficult to accurately describe these aspects of the real because language tends to be casual in its references. Phrases such as "self aware" serve well enough for street talk, but they are clumsy and misguided for other than colloquial purposes.

Let consciousness relax. Let consciousness dissolve into the awareness which is its substrate: this is meditation. And only by meditation does Self discover its identity and its abode.