There Is Only One ‘I’: A Meditation on Self, Illusion, and Presence
We don’t outgrow our ego — we awaken within it. A clear-eyed look at the myth of the higher self and the truth of conscious being.
The brick and the dream
There’s an old Buddhist story.
A student approaches the master, philosophizing: “This world is an illusion, not real.”
Without a word, the master picks up a brick and smacks the student on the head.
“What do you feel?”
“Pain… and suffering.”
“Strange,” says the master. “How can you suffer if the world is unreal?”
Simple lesson, but effective.
Like dreams. You live them as if they’re real — until you wake up. Even lucid dreaming, where you can shape the dream and know you’re dreaming, is still not reality. It’s just conscious imagination.
The two selves myth
There’s this popular idea — especially in New Age circles — that we have two selves: a lower ‘I’ (ego), and a higher ‘I’ (divine, enlightened, pure).
It’s comforting. Makes it easy to say, after doing something stupid: “Oh, that wasn’t the real me. That was my lower self.”
I used to do that too.
But here’s the problem:
Where was my “higher self” when I messed up? Nowhere. I wasn’t aware of it. And after the fallout, there was no “lower self” either. Just me again.
In truth, there is only one ‘I’. The reality of our being is where our consciousness is focused. What you’re aware of, you live. What you live, you become. That’s it. One self. One center. One presence.
When was the ego split?
Let me ask this:
When exactly does this magical transition from lower to higher self happen?
Does the ego hold a farewell party? Do we look back fondly on our “lower self” like we remember high school?
Imagine a new driver getting behind the wheel for the first time. Does he have a “lower driver” and a “higher driver”?
Of course not. He’s just a driver.
The only difference is experience — gained through making mistakes and learning from them.
The same applies to us.
There aren’t two egos. There’s only one — sometimes blind, sometimes aware, always evolving.
The “higher self” is often just a clever trick of the ego to avoid facing the truth of how it is now.
The witness behind the self
But we can go deeper.
Behind the ‘I’, behind the person we identify with, there is something else.
A witness. A subject. A still presence.
Like a body stands behind the leg, and the psyche behind the body, and the self behind the psyche — there is a subtle presence behind the self.
This subject watches. It does not judge, it does not interfere. It simply is.
Yet confusion arises. The self sees something and claims: “This is me.”
That’s how the subject — dressed in the clothes of ego — starts thinking it’s the actor. Like iron glowing in fire, ego absorbs the heat of subjectivity and believes it’s in charge.
And thus begins the fall. The split. The Lucifer myth in theology is just this: ego mistaking itself as the source of light, not just the bearer of it.
The illusion of a higher self
From this split, we begin to miss the unity we once knew.
We project a “higher self” as a memory of that wholeness. And the struggling, craving, suffering self we live now becomes the “lower self.”
But here’s the twist: that “higher self” doesn’t exist. It’s a projection. A fantasy to escape the discomfort of the present.
All salvation is now.
The key isn’t found in escaping the current ‘I’, but in fully entering it.
What you are right now, in this moment — that’s you.
That’s where God is. Not above. Not in the future. But here. Living as you. Whether in grace or disgrace, that presence is unbroken.
God on the toilet
Yes, even if you’re on the toilet — God is there, because you are there.
The Absolute is not a sterile abstraction. It’s living, breathing, sweating, defecating — through you, through time.
The outside world is just how the Absolute looks from the outside: sunsets, oceans, midnight skies.
The inside world is how it feels: stillness, fullness, bliss.
Close your eyes and fall inward.
You’ll find peace. And that peace, that wholeness, you will see again — outside — in every beautiful sound, shape, and silence.
Even in the “ugly” things, the Absolute dwells.
Why? Because you are experiencing them. And you are the living mirror of the Divine.
The ‘I’ that remains
This ‘I’ is life itself as it’s being lived.
When you’re fully in the moment — when you act without self-consciousness — that’s when the ‘I’ disappears… and paradoxically, that’s when it shines most.
If you were to die today, that ‘I’ wouldn’t vanish. It would still live — here, in these words, and in everyone who resonates with them.
Live like that.
Be present.
There’s only one ‘I’.
And all the rest… are just stories.
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This meditation strikes at something I've been wrestling with: that tendency to split myself into 'who I should be' and 'who I am,' as if there's some purified version waiting in the future while the present self is inadequate. Your point about the new driver resonates deeply. There's no "lower driver" learning; there's just a driver gaining experience. What hits hardest is the reminder that the divine isn't somewhere else: not above, not in the future: but here in the presence of this moment. Even on the toilet, as you so plainly put it. That's liberation.