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What he is self.

I am always amazed when I come across some of the golden nuggets that are scattered along the bumpy road of personnel growth and self improvement.

Today I would like to share with you a nugget, a story that I have recently come across.

A Buddhist teacher, Nagasena, once asked a great king of Greece called Milinda to prove that he existed. The king laughed at this question but then Nagasena asked: if you dismantle a chariot piece by piece, can you still call the heap of parts a chariot?

The heap serves none of the functions of a chariot, so can be one only in name. And when you reassemble the pieces, at what precise point do they become a chariot again?

It is impossible to say is that not?. So wherein lies its “chariot-ness?.

In a sense the chariot has in no intrinsic existence beyond the conventional name we gave it and the projections of our minds.

The same applies, Nagasena concluded, when we trying to pin down the illusion of the Self.

What do you think about this and do you know your own self?

Comments and views are welcome.

Chris

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 7:21 pm and is filed under Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.