Most people think ghosts are insubstantial shapes or visions that come and go. They aren't very solid or real, and a lot of people can't even see them. And yet how real or solid are your images of yourself-your ideas about who you are? If one day you have an image of yourself as an very attractive person and the next day you see yourself as unattractive, how substantial was either image? And who else can see your self image? What could it mean if you see yourself as unattractive and someone becomes attracted to you anyway? It could mean that they can't actually see your self image. Maybe the way you see yourself is a kind of ghost.

We are not always willing to see that our idea of ourselves is a kind of ghost because we really believe that is what we are. We may wonder, Who am I if what I think I am is something insubstantial and not real? What is here besides the ghosts of my self images?

We do exist, and we are real. But does this innate sense of our reality actually come from the image of ourselves? Or does our sense of existing come from someplace deep within our being? It's hard to determine when the image and the sense of realness are both present at the same time, and our ego takes on that deeper sense we have of being real.

One accurate way to measure how real something is to ask how long does it last. The more reality something has, the longer it tends to last. Your ideas about yourself come and go (like a ghost) and don't last that long at all. A thought is over so fast that often we can't even remember what we were just thinking.

A new image or thought about ourselves is constantly arising to replace the last thought or image. And sometimes we aren't thinking about ourselves at all. So all our self-images images and identifications are not very real. They are like ghosts in our minds.

What about the simple sense of your existence? How often does that come and go, or in other words, how often do you have an opposite sense-that you don't exist? The inner sense that you exist doesn't come and go and is more real than your ideas about yourself. You do exist, but your self-images are just ghosts. You are not contained in your identifications or ideas about yourself. You are still here even when your images of yourself fade away, like the ghostlike images in a movie.

This real you is the you that matters. What would it be like to be more curious about this real you than you are about the false ghosts of your self-images? What are you really? of? What is the real you like? What does it really want? What can and can't it do? These are great questions to explore, but remember that the real answers are still not to be found in any ideas about yourself. Look in the simple sense that you exist for the truest answers