Israel Centeno

It craves more power, more affection, more validation, more control. It feeds on an illusory emptiness and generates suffering: physical suffering, spiritual suffering, the pain of absence.

The Self fears disappearance because it lives under the illusion of self-sufficiency.

The Self causes suffering because it demands, competes, and clings to what it can never truly possess. It drags us into its storm of broken expectations and open wounds.

But true Identity—that which we do not fabricate but receive—needs no comparison or defense.

It is the root God has planted within us.

It is the seed of eternal life, the profound truth of our being that does not depend on applause or rejection.

It is not the restless, changing “self” of psychology; it is the true Self already loved before any merit or failure.

Thus, in the mystical life, the Self cannot merely be corrected or decorated.

It must be taken to the cross.

It must be crucified with Christ.

“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20)

The crucifixion of the Self is not annihilation; it is redemption.

It is not the destruction of the person, but the liberation of the true person from the lies that enslave them.

When the false Self dies on the cross, true Identity rises in God.

The Self builds walls.

Identity builds bridges.

The Self holds back.

Identity gives freely.

The Self fears being lost.

Identity knows it has already been found.

Only by crucifying the Self, as Christ was crucified, can the soul discover true freedom: not the freedom to do whatever it wishes, but the freedom to be what it truly is in Christ, in eternal Love