Back to the beginning: the cave

[robvalue]

I think the idea is that through total surrender of the self, one comes into contact with all of existence in some way.

One way I've heard it described is that all the stuff we sense is a painting-- but under it lies the canvas.

The "self" is a very nebulous concept to begin with. I don't know what it would mean to surrender it, or how it would aid the situation. It sounds like either delusion or trance-like meditation. I expect some/most animals aren't even capable of having a concept of "the self" but I doubt that helps them in this regard.

I am part of reality though, after all. My real constituent parts interact with reality. But my mind, and the concepts within it, seem to be a kind of emergent property of those parts; and as such they will always have some sort of disconnect. I'm not even aware of most of what my body is doing, on a general level.