In need of a "rough" guide

[ElPortal]

Hey Alex,

How's it going?

Cheers

Mark

[nemecsek]

Hi Mark.
I was writing you when I found your message.
As a shortcut I will use "I" in this post. I don't mean with it the Alex who believed to be in charge when we began the chat. Grammar is not helping me to find a viable substitute.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

No, it has never been. It is obvious now: there is nobody in charge, nobody observing, nobody acting, nobody choosing: there is a body, there is observing, acting, producing thoughts and among the latter the idea that there is a self. I can imagine any animal living like this: just being, experiencing life, being life, just without the absurd thought there is a self in control of its own life. As a species we don't look to be particularly lucky...
 

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now. 

It is a thought which has been reinforced by a number of other thoughts in the course of years. There is the feeling that it has its importance and there is no reason to fight it, like it is meaningless to fight against dreams.
The thought of self is born from experiences and memories, till it becomes so "real" to "become" reality. It feeds on limits, on separation, on lies which are not real but learned.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

Strange as it is, there are no special feelings associated to this discovery. It is so natural that it is not even surprising. It was obvious even before but I didn't recognize it.
What is the difference? Everything.
I tried to describe it to a friend which shared with me a path of personal growth for the last couple of years. I use now the description "to watch a movie". Before I was inside the movie. Intellectually I was a character in the movie which tried to jump out from the screen by observing what was around me on the set. The character expected that meditating the jump would magically happen, to discover the real Alex on the chair, watching the movie and not part of it.
What is clear now is that even my personal growth path was "inside" the movie and without a guide it was not possible to "jump out".
The jump didn't really happen. What happened is far subtler: it is like another spectator sat between "me" and the screen. Any moment this spectator is there, in front of the screen, to remind that the character on the screen is a fake.
And there is not even an Alex which sits in the cinema, behind the spectator...
 

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look? 

It was when I understood what it means to look honestly. A number of fears where under the carpet and disappeared very fast without any particular effort.
 

5) Describe as best you can how deciding, intending, choosing and controlling events in Life happens. What are you responsible for? Do you make anything happen?

At the moment life is blissfully simple. While raw emotions are very present, there is a fundamental acceptance that makes everything easy. There is not the passivity I feared. There is actually no fear about me and the future. When fear arises, just observing it (passively, there is no effort involved, feeling it is not real) is enough to melt it. There is no attempt to remove obstacles, it its more likes knowing that the driver, whoever he is, will take care to drive safely home.
There is the deep knowledge (not intellectual but emotional) that life its acting through my body, that Alex its not taking any decision, that there its no possibility to control anything because there its no controller, that there its no responsibility, that there is no bad and good because what happens is beyond any possibility to be changed by the choices of an independent self.
We humans apparently modify our destiny acting according to reason, but what happens is automatic: human mind "calculates" the best action, and perhaps the self-thought finds a fraction of second later a possible explanation that gives the illusion there is a chooser behind it. But the isn't.

6) Anything to add

Just (little) surprise that there was not the jump out of the screen, suffer and crises, bliss, sense of annihilation, seeing God and angels, seeing past lives, special joy, sadness, nothing I expected to experience before this chat.

It is to late now for further writing. Some of what I was going to write has been lost along the way. There is also not special need to share this experience, it is an effort to find words to describe it. It is easy to fall into cheap philosophy, intellectual explanations or new age bullshits.

Thank you once more Mark. Without your help it was impossible to see something so little and at the same time so huge.
Good night

[ElPortal]

HI Alex,

Thanks for those answers: enjoyable to read!

For the benefit of other guides, whom I will ask to read through your answers, could you please just give a couple practical examples for your answer to Q5, e.g. apparent choices made in everyday life, describing as best you can what appears to be going on there, and what is actually happening in that decision-making process. Just describe as best you can, even if gropingly.

Other guides may have questions, but once there are no more of those you will be invited to groups for those who have seen through the illusion of self. These groups can be really helpful for working through residual issues and for mutual support.

Thanks

Mark

[nemecsek]

Thank you Mark for your quick reply.

apparent choices made in everyday life, describing as best you can what appears to be going on there, and what is actually happening in that decision-making process.

Any choice is really not a choice, at least in the sense of an Alex (the self) choosing among options with free will.

Now I'm writing. It looks like there is a choice of words. Alex, in the form of an internal voice, is just "reading aloud" what has (inconsciously) already been thought and is going to be written, conjuring the illusion he was the thinker and then the writer.

Thoughts, decisions, actions are taken care without any intervention of Alex. The apparent Alex is just very good to take the credit of them. What changed a lot is the internal voice: being very often absent there is nobody asking for credit and it becomes evident that "Alex" itself is a fraud.
It is like to play the piano, and then you need to pee, leave the chair and discover only then that the piano is automatic and plays on its own.

Some time ago I described you an experiment: I chose to move an hand. When I was ready to affirm I had won, inventing an action that was out of the program and ultimately acting upon free will, I understood that the "free will" was well after the automatic (and not controllable) thought which decided to perform the test itself. Not to say that also the movement was not in "my" control.

Have a nice day
Alex

[ElPortal]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for that. The other guides enjoyed reading the thread: no more questions from them.

You'll receive a Private Message from me.

My pleasure.

Mark