Isolation

We are miserable because we are too much in the self.  What does it mean when I say we are too much in the self?  And what exactly happens when we are too much in the self?  Either you can be in existence or you can be in the self--both are not possible together.  To be in the self means to be apart, to be separate.  To be in the self is to become an island.  To be in the self means to draw a boundary line around you.  To be in the self means to make a distinction between "this I am" and "that I am not".  

The definition, the boundary, between "I and "not I is what the self is--the self isolates.  And it makes you frozen--you are no longer flowing.  If you are flowing the self cannot exist. 

Hense people have become almost like ice-cubes.  They don't have any warmth, they don't have any love--love is warmth and they are afraid of love.  If warmth comes to them they will start melting and the boundaries will disappear.  In love the boundaries disappear; in joy also the boundaries disappear, because joy is not cold.

--Zen Tarot, Osho