It’s been a while, so today’s Mind-Tickler is brought to you by the Woo.

This morning I looked up and noticed a black spot moving on my wall. I live in the land of black widow spiders and other bitey things, so that spot was not to be ignored. I got closer and saw … there was nothing there.

Yup I distinctly saw something that wasn’t there.

Perhaps you spiritual types can guess where I’m goin’ with this.

This Me, the Myself-thingy we all speak of with such authority, such certainty… I shall herewith call it Spot.

Because look more closely and… it ain’t there.

Oh it does feel like the self is there. It does feel like, “Of course there’s a me!”  Right?

Yeah. I was sure I saw a spot today too.

“Feels like” and “seems like” are both useless and uninformative when it comes to Spot.

So let’s just get the proof out of the way shall we?  

You’ve heard ad nauseam that we are not the body. That means if I ask you to point to You, to the Self, to Spot, and you turn an index finger towards that body and happily say, “I’m right here!”, well, what exactly are you pointing to?

Are you saying the cheeks, collarbone, nose hairs- they’re what you are? Or the brain or heart- are you saying if you take them out of the body and put them on a table, they’ll do anything more than just sit there like the meat they are?

Nah that stuff isn’t You.

Or perhaps it “feels like” your Self is inside - in the head maybe, or the chest. Although, I’m pretty sure there’s no little you in there, sitting on a chaise lounge popping bonbons, wondering what took you so long to find him or her.

No, no MRI has ever revealed the Self, because there’s no place or location for it inside the body.

Besides, if Spot is not physical and yet is somehow trapped in there and too stupid to take any of the many exits out, well then…

if it’s that dumb it may not even be worth bothering to find.

Y’know?

Ok. So.

How does it happen that something so certain and so seemingly obvious is, on closer exam, not actually there?

Well, like my spot on the wall, the Self, the Me, seems real because it seems locatable. We locate, as in literally give it a solid place.

How? We describe. We compare. We monitor “How am I doing?” at all times.

“How am I feeling? Was I friendly enough? Did they like me? Am I good enough? Am I smart? Oh man I’m a loser, a wuss, unlovable. I am better than that person and not as good as that one.”

“I Am.” Boom. Location.

Comparison and self-monitoring give a solidity and a sense of Spot.  Words place us into existence.

Ok ok, fine, so who cares? Why does this even matter?

Well, actually it doesn’t. Truly.

Despite all those earnest teachers and spiritual seekers’ insistence, the illusion of Self doesn’t ever have to be seen. No one ever has to know that they’re seeing spots that aren’t there.

So if you've done a lot of spiritual seeking, you can be perfectly within your rights to say, “Screw it,” and give that time-suck a rest at last.

Although it does feel like the Self-illusion-thingy suffers. The placement of and insistence on the existence of Spot feels awful, as lies so often do.

Which is not the worst thing in the world. Feelings of all kinds are here to be felt after all.

It's just also that ... we're not always up for those feels.

So if it seems like a break from hurting might be nice once in a while, seeing that Spot is a delusion can help some of that day to day suffering, ease.

And more ease might be ok, and could very well just be a Spot you’d feel happier to see is... not there.