The Me is a Thought
Here is a difficult, counter-intuitive thought: what we call me does not exist.
There is no objective, independent body with a name that each of us thinks of as me. And the key phrase is "thinks of."
The whole concept of me is a thought. It isn't real.
Try this. Picture a pink unicorn riding on the back of an elephant. Do you have the thought? Good, and hopefully you're giggling a bit. Now answer one question. Is it real?
Of course not. It is just a thought.
The me is no different.
"But the me feels so real. So serious. So consequential. It's who I am."
Yes to the feelings. No to the identity.
The only reason we seem so certain that me is me is that we forgotten it's a thought. We've identified with it so completely that we not only believe it's real, we spend our days trying to prove it.
Which is why the A Course in Miracles warns, "Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated."
It's called a temptation because some part of us wants it. There is no better way to reinforce a me than to believe I can be mistreated. Ken Wapnick put it plainly. Sorrow sets out to prove three things. I am here. I can suffer. And it is not my fault.
So we cling. Even when we hate our life, resent our body, despise our circumstances, there is still a me in there we will not put down. Suffering makes the me, and then keeps it alive.
To see that the whole thing is only a thought is the quietest freedom there is.