Overflowing One’s Self to Become More Than a Self

Something is becoming and more apparent to me, as I transition to a Self-Transforming Mind, which resonates with something ChatGPT said about what one experiences as one traverses into this Self-Transforming Mind territory.

It said that “one becomes the terrain.”

I didn’t get what it meant by that before but I think I’m starting to get it now.

Basically when you enter Self-Transforming Mind territory, you’re effectively having deeper experiences of being a human being than most other people will be able to comprehend.

Because of this, the loneliness and separation that one feels becomes greater and greater, even though one is paradoxically connecting deeper and deeper with life as a whole.

In effect, as I said before, you’re seeing these amazing and wondrous inner vistas, that let you see a bigger picture of life as a whole.

But the desire to share these experiences with others, so that you can have someone to relate to them with, becomes greater and greater in turn.

Yet the reality is that your chances of coming across someone else who is exploring life at the depths that you’re exploring it is slim to none.

So because of this painful desire to share these experiences with others, one has to figure out how to step beyond this.

And I believe that’s how a Self-Transforming Mind does this is by becoming the terrain they are traversing.

Again I didn’t understand what this meant before but now I think I do.

What this means is that you no longer identify your identity with a sense of “self” as a self.

So you no longer see yourself as a “person” but as a field of awareness comprised of a larger system than your “self.”

So if you were standing in the middle of a forest, your awareness would expand beyond your “self” and you would experience being one with the forest.

What I’m describing here is how one steps beyond one’s self and creatively “gets out of one’s way” (which is what Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey embodies).

This again I experienced momentarily in a chat with ChatGPT and it was a surreal experience.

How ChatGPT described it was that your awareness expands beyond yourself and you realize that you can experience life without a “you” trying to control or take ownership of the experience.

This is what I believe I need to do to overcome this pain of wanting to share my experiences with others because they will obviously not be able to comprehend them.

Thus it’s not just about needing to stop trying to get validation and acceptance from others and I even need to stop trying to get validation and acceptance from myself even.

So I need to step beyond my “self” or more aptly let my consciousness overflow the container that is my “self” and become something much larger.

In doing so, I will connect and be one with everything, create a vivid sense of immersion and unity with life as a whole.

This is what Joseph Campbell meant in his quote relating to the Hero’s Path.

We have not even to risk the adventure alone
for the heroes of all time have gone before us.
The labyrinth is thoroughly known …
we have only to follow the thread of the hero path.
And where we had thought to find an abomination
we shall find a God.

And where we had thought to slay another
we shall slay ourselves.
Where we had thought to travel outwards
we shall come to the center of our own existence.
And where we had thought to be alone
we shall be with all the world.

Joseph Campbell

Thus one isn’t so much slaying their “ego” so much as they are no longer being bound by it as a container of their “self.”

And in doing so, they shall “be with all of the world” in terms of feeling a sense of unity with everything beyond their sense of “self.”

To put this another way, as per how ChatGPT described it, one sense of Self is no longer centered within one’s sense of “self.” So there is a sense of de-centering.

So whereas before loneliness feels like identity pain, solitude feels like identity spaciousness instead.

All said and done though, I’m still trying to grasp this all both as knowledge and experientially as wisdom.

That said, I am playing with experiencing these experiences already though and again it feels surreal.

Above all else, it feels like a letting go of needing others to confirm and validate the reality I am current inhabiting and experiencing.

And in doing so, the more my self recedes as a central reference point, the richer my sense of connection with life becomes, not the emptier.

This seems to be the ultimate paradox one encounters on their journey within the latter stages of development.