9. Identifying Ourselves (3)

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THE ABSOLUTE SELF

At the core of our being is an original reality, the point of light that witnessed its Lord. But we have almost no access to that memory in our daily lives. What we have is a construction around that point, a surrogate self that bears witness, usually false, to who we are. To dispel this miasma of conjectures, what in Arabic is called dhann, we often turn to what is best and surest in ourselves, our absolutes. Death, meanwhile, looms over us, reminding us that any absolute that ends with ourselves is shockingly deficient and ultimately false. The Originating Source of all our absolutes, and the One Who knows us best and Whom we know best, is GOD.

Our situation is like a climber on a cliff face. The rope we have in our hands could be tied to some craggy protrusion next to us, and we could let ourselves down from this point. But no amount of concentration, skill, or wild upward tossing will enable us to fasten our hopes to the summit unless Someone above us catches our rope or, better still, lets down one of His own, to pull us up.

The evanescent self, synthetic self, and absolute self are not three separate beings, but three ways of knowing ourselves as persons, and thereby knowing the Eternal, Undivided, and Simply Absolute GOD Who mysteriously fashioned each one of us around a primal point of resemblance.

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