Spiritual teacher Jean Klein came up with a memorable way to think about the separate self: it’s the clown that takes the bow at the end of a performance without actually performing anything.
Here’s how Francis Lucille and Rupert Spira describe it (see below).
The Separate Self is the Clown that takes the Bow (Jean Klein Teaching)
Francis Lucille says:
- “My teacher (Jean Klein) used to say the mind is like a clown taking the bow after the ballerina’s performance to claim the applause … In fact, the clown didn’t dance. The thinker thought didn’t think … There is no local chooser. Obviously, things get decided somehow or happen. So, in a poetic way, we could say that the universe makes a decision.”
Rupert Spira says:
- “Jean Klein likened the separate self to the clown that comes onstage after the curtain has fallen to receive the applause. It’s a very nice analogy of the separate self … In retrospect, we look at the succession of thoughts … We look back and imagine that there is a ‘chooser’ in the system between each thought … It’s not actually there in between each of the thoughts. The chooser itself is not there in between each thought choosing each time between a range of possibilities: ‘I’ll have that thought next, and then I’ll have this thought.’ That chooser is not there. The notion of a chooser is simply itself a thought which appears retrospectively. The thought says, ‘I was there in between each thought choosing it.’ It’s the clown that takes the bow. It wasn’t actually present, but it claims responsibility afterwards.”
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