There is no individual self...

The fundamental fact is that no phenomenal object can have any independent existence of its own, and without this autonomy it has no choice of action. As a sentient being you think that you act and react, but the real functioning all happens in consciousness without your consent or consultation.

As an actor in this living drama you can only play your role, nothing more. Whatever you may think of yourself, you cannot but be an integral part of the total manifestation and the total functioning, without any separate choice.

All phenomena are mere appearances in space-time, conceived and perceived in consciousness. You can comprehend this when from the waking state you look back into your dream of the night before. What appeared as yourself in the dream, seemingly an independent entity, is later seen to be devoid of any independent substance, a mere puppet being manipulated.

The waking dream is no different. Just as you dream when you are asleep, you also dream when you are awake, but you do not realize that you are dreaming because you are still in the dream... meanwhile, life is being lived, with everything that is happening being a product of the obfuscating, objectifying nature of the mind, spinning its imaginary play within consciousness. And that consciousness itself is but a temporary aberration that came like an eclipse onto the noumenon, remaining there for awhile, and then disappearing.

What you as body-mind are 'doing' all day is nothing but objectivizing, producing illusory images and interpretations. Manifestation itself is nothing but continuous objectivization, keeping the lie of separation and multiplicity alive.

The interesting point about this process of objectivization is that in the created duality of subject and object, both of these are, in fact, objects phenomenalized in consciousness like dream-figures. But the one who is cognizing the object assumes the role of the subject, as a separate entity, the individual self, identifying itself as 'I', and viewing the cognized object as the 'other' or 'not-I'. Thus is born the concept of the individual, through the illusion of a false subject playing the part of an object.

When objectivization ceases, as in deep sleep, then the objectified universe disappears. In deep sleep, there is no individual self, there is no world and there is no God. When the mind fasts or rests, when it stops its weaving of illusory objects and calms down, then the absolute Presence reveals itself. Then the manifested universe is not, but you are. When thinking abates and the true position is perceived directly, intuitively, then you know that within relativity, you are the conscious presence, the universal 'I amness' and not the phenomenal object, which you animate with sentience.

But, in the realm of the Absolute, you are the noumenon, pure Awareness, that which is... devoid of all concepts and qualities.