Beautiful! I am happy to keep on exploring THIS with you, but the way you wrote your last post, I think "you got it" - if thats possible at all :-)
What we normally do here at LU, once the separate self has been seen as illusory, is to ask a few final questions and then offer you to join the LU groups on Facebook. At the same time we can also start a new discussion in the Unleashed section of this forum. If this sounds good, then please have a look at these questions. It might also be the case that there are more doubts coming up when answering the questions, which is fine too - we can explore this as well:
1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
No, most definitely not.
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.
The self is a fictional mental construct of an autonomous being that believes it perceives, analyzes, manipulates, and to some degree controls and even creates an external environment (and the other separate objects within that environment) in which self operates. Self has a need to be the master of its domain. And when the environment and objects don't function according to plan, the self becomes frustrated. It interprets things and events in terms of good and bad, holy and evil, pleasant and unpleasant, fair and unfair, etc. The self seems to operate primarily from a need to be important or special. That importance or specialness reinforces the perceived separation.
Are we born with it? I'm not sure. I see yours/mine happening at a very young age.
I'm getting an analogy about eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Christian bible. That all of a sudden seems to be about self/no-self.
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.
I'm not getting any mind-blowing revelations about unity, which I suppose if I had anticipated some outcome, that would have been it. What I really notice is the falling away of self-importance. So much just doesn't really seem to matter. I'm content to just allow what is to be what it is, and not attribute meaning to things. There's no need for things to be good or bad, fair or unfair. I really seem to be disinterested in the future, and where there previously would have been an uneasiness with that disinterest, there now is not. I can actually sense the space where that uneasiness would have been. Mental labels now seem silly. Especially the spiritual label. That one is actually hilarious to me. I literally want to laugh out loud about "spiritual." I'm getting an image of people (myself included) immersed in various spiritual practices being like kids playing on a playground. It's fun and harmless, but that seems to be about the extent of it. There most certainly is no "power" in it. There is a perceptible shift that I almost anticipated being gone today when I awoke. But it's still there. A noticable shifting that I can't seem to be able to describe in words. And clinging. I just got that. No more mental or emotional clinging.
4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?
Many things served to help chip away at it, but I feel that the repeated asking of who is inquiring about who is looking is ultimately what did it. The chipping away weakened the construct enough that eventually the remainder just shattered from the repeated asking.
5) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work? What are you responsible for?
Please give examples from recent experience.
Yesterday at work I got a wet spot on my jeans. Wet enough that it was uncomfortable and was going to take quite awhile to dry. Instead of fretting over it I realized that my choice was simply to stay at work with wet jeans or go home and change. I decided to go home and change. I could have worried about what my supervisor might think, or how many hours of work I would miss for the pay period, and previously I would have done that. But the reality of the situation was simply that I could stay and be uncomfortable, or go home. My jeans getting wet and remaining wet were beyond my control. I just got that there really isn't control at all. And after that, just now, I got that control implies a controller, which of course there is none. There does seem to be a subtle difference between decision and choice. Decision involves evaluative thinking. So maybe not so subtle a difference. Choice is just the act of picking. I'm getting that choice is more about spontaneity. Intention has the quality of being purposeful. It's about wanting something to be a certain way, then intending it to be that way. That implies self to me, as does will. Intention and will imply control which implies a controller. Now I'm getting that decision implies a decider and choice implies a chooser. What does that leave? Nothing. There does seem to be something remaining regarding choice, but I'm not able to pin it down. Nothing "makes" things happen. The happening just is. It's organic. There's a quality of cause and effect among "things", but source seems to be an entirely different matter. Sunlight causes evaporation which results in moisture forming in clouds which results in rain falling back to the Earth which puddles on pavement which may cause a vehicle to lose traction, etc. And the water eventually evaporates continuing the cycle. But the isness underlying all of that seems to be the only thing of true substance. The underlying isness is all that really is. I'm going off on a tangent, but that's what I'm getting. What am I responsible for? Nothing. There is no me to be responsible.
6) Anything to add?
This last bit of questioning helped in "getting" that I actually "got it." It feels as if nothing has changed and everything has changed. Awareness is shifting subtly but massively. What does it all mean? Nothing. Hilarious. I just got the cosmic joke.
