False Self Concept

I got started thinking about the transgendered thing when a (male) friend of mine called me up a few years ago from Florida to tell me that he was becoming a woman. It suddenly struck me during that conversation how fundamental of a transition that is.

Spiritual practice (in my opinion) is about realization of my true self. My true self is not my body, not my mind, not my personality. (In Sanskrit they call this, "Neti, neti"... "not this, not that"). They don't really talk much about what the self IS, just what it is NOT, since if you try to put the self into words, you'll get it wrong, since it is beyond conceptualization, yet it is real. The Tao Teh Ching says, "The Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao."

One of the things we mis-identify with most strongly is our gender. So when someone becomes the opposite sex, they are going through such a fundamental breaking of that false identification. Probably in most cases they are just switching from one illusion (I am a man) to another (I am a woman), so it has no spiritual benefit. But a few might use the experience to break through to "I am not man, not woman. I am that I am."

Another fundamental transition in identity is when somebody who is overweight loses a lot of weight. I started dieting at the age of about thirteen, as a wrestler in high school (all wrestlers lose weight so that they can compete with smaller people, and thereby gain advantage). Then I continued ever since, whenever I get too fat. So, several times I have lost 20 or 30 pounds or so, and have noticed how huge an impact it has on my notion of identity. If you identify with your body, when your body changes so dramatically, it affects EVERYTHING. But I'm sure that's nowhere near the magnitude of a sex change.

Of course, one of the biggest false-identification destroyers (agents of Siva) is aging and the physical/mental changes that come with it. Then death is, of course, the ultimate teacher.

All of these obstacle destroyers are moving us inexorably toward enlightenment... which is the giving up of false identities.

Jesus said something like, "You must turn around and become like little children". Little children do not have notions of self. They are just here to play.