My Body and My Self
Edited from the Gold Coast Talk June 1993
What we are endeavouring to do is actually be the simplicity, the naturalness, of the body, now. But don’t think or you’ll create another body - a hidden body inside - called your self, which will be unhappy or think about the problems in your life and what you want or what you can’t get...
The point of it all is to be the natural body. As much as you can, be that. And then you will find a joy naturally arises, for the nature of the body is joy.
My self consists of my past conditioning. My body is now. My self is between my pure body and my pure life. When my self gets into my body, it distorts the field of intelligence - which is my body - and starts to interfere with things. My self, being pain, looks to get something - to escape from pain. And the way it does that is through excitement.
The principal excitement the self gets is from love as sex. Because the self consists of unhappiness, it turns what would be love into sex, distorts love by trying to get something to assuage or reduce its pain. Sex will always use you. Sex will use every man and every woman to get something for its self - some transitory peace or quiet or rest. But it will only be temporary, because the pain rises up again, wanting some more experience...
If I make love with my body and not with my self, everything’s fine.
No Experience In Truth