Fadi
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Sam Harris, through his travels to the east and his meetings with some Buddhist gurus, has come to the conclusion that there is no "self", we are basically selfless, and Buddhism is about selflessness. For the true followers of Buddhism, the religion is a philosophy of morality and ethics, encapsulated within a life of renunciation of the ego-self. Not only is God seen as illusory, but even we ourselves lose our “selves.” Personality itself becomes an illusion.
So Sam writes in his book: Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion: Sam Harris: 9781451636017: Amazon.com: Books
“The self that does not survive scrutiny is the subject of experience in each present moment — the feeling of being a thinker of thoughts inside one’s head, the sense of being an owner or inhabitant of a physical body, which this false self seems to appropriate as a kind of vehicle. Even if you don’t believe such a homunculus exists — perhaps because you believe, on the basis of science, that you are identical to your body and brain rather than a ghostly resident therein — you almost certainly feel like an internal self in almost every waking moment. And yet, however one looks for it, this self is nowhere to be found. It cannot be seen amid the particulars of experience, and it cannot be seen when experience itself is viewed as a totality. However, its absence can be found — and when it is, the feeling of being a self disappears.”
Okay, so according to him, I have a false sense of my own “self”, this “self” of mine, is but an illusion. So it’s not real and it does not exist, therefore instead of I am, I should now be saying I am not…or perhaps leave the “I” out altogether, since “I”, points to my own existence.
I would much prefer to believe in the ‘self”, my own real “self”, even though I can’t touch it, feel it, or smell it. So basically if it’s not a materialistic entity, I therefore should disbelieve in it, or go a step further and say that there really was nothing there to believe in in the first instance.
No thank you. For me, I work to keep my “self” under control (through Jihad al nafs/ the struggle of the self), and by doing so; I attain personal growth, and not through meditating to reach a state of nirvana, where there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self. I want the whole package that comes with life; the good and the bad, and if that means suffering is part of the package of life, so be it, I’ll willingly deal with it. I want the works, and I won’t shy away in some little remote corner somewhere away from everyone as some religious “pious” people do, where there are no trials and tribulations.
Sufism is the mystical side of Islam. The notion of fana’, commonly translated from Arabic as annihilation or obliteration, provides a potential point of contact between Sufi practices and Buddhist notions of nirvana, a word which, in Sanskrit, derives from the type of extinction one sees when one snuffs out the flame of a candle.
Please note above, that I said struggle of the self rather than struggle from the self, there’s a difference, just as there is freedom of self, compared with freedom from self.
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