In our work, we use the true self to expose the false self. But there is always the danger of trying to hold on to an identity. The Buddhists, for instance, don’t talk about a true self, because they see this danger. They say there is no such thing as a true self, because your belief in a true self might enhance or substantiate an experience of ego. Here, then, we see the need for the dissolution of identity itself, whether true or false. We are attached to identity itself, and any attachment to identity, even to an experience of true self, becomes the false identity. We want to hold on to identity because we assume that we need a center. “Now I have a true center,” says ego, “finally I’m self-realized.” The ego is gloating over its victory, “I have slain the ego,” says ego. “Now I am a star, I’m no longer a human being,” says ego. – Diamond Heart Book Two: The Freedom to Be, Ch. 4
When we say, “I feel compassionate,” or “I have a headache,” or even “I see a dog,” we know we can become clearer about what is this compassion, where in the head it hurts, or what sort of dog we are seeing. But the “I” who is feeling or hurting or seeing is, as we said, usually vague and in the background. We don’t think to ask, what is this “I” who feels or hurts or sees? This is a central element in many paths: beginning to explore what is the location of experience, and to appreciate the field of awareness itself as the ground and medium of perception and experience. Direct recognition of the conscious presence, which is the soul, gives us a new ability to understand our capacity for inner perception. When we recognize that this field is a presence that is ontologically more fundamental than inner content, we understand that the content must be arising within this field. – A. H. Almaas, The Inner Journey Home: Soul’s Realization of the Unity of Reality, Ch. 4