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[hylas]

Sorry about the delay: been sick, and with a full house on a snow day.

Is there a knower of this "ungraspable knowing?"

There's no knower of ungraspable knowing. Unless you want to say that that ungraspable knowing knows itself. But I don't think that's right. At least I can't make that make any sense without some intellectual twits and turns. It's the not the experience.

[Josephkoudelka]

Hi hylas. I am going to give you the final questions. Take your time.

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

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.

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.

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

5) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How
does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

6) Anything to add?

[hylas]

Hi hylas. I am going to give you the final questions. Take your time.

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

There is no separate self, of course. To understand that there isn’t one is to understand that there never was one.

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 idea of separation is just that, an idea, a concept, a word. All such concepts are human carvings of the world. The spectrum of color has no divisions, of course. We call one slice of it blue, once slice of it green, etc. The concept attached to each is, of course, learned. But the place of separation—indeed, the very idea of separation—is arbitrary. There is no right place to separate blue from other colors. And so there is not even a real “blue.” The “idea” of a separate self is much the same. There is a wash of experience, of perception. We are taught words and began to apply them so that we can communicate and also so we can more efficiently survive the world. But then we begin to think that these words point to real and natural divisions. One of these words or concepts is the name of our self, and also the word “you” and “me.”
I think it’s worth saying that this is something of a conjecture; it too is what you would call a “story.” We have no real idea in this moment where our concepts come from. It could be we were born with certain “divisions” or concepts inherent in our biology, it could be that we appeared in our dream five seconds ago with all language intact. It’s also possible that in our childhood we become aware of some kind of wordless concepts, by watching the behavior of others, before we learned the words for those concepts (this can be pointed to by looking at how toddlers use words. For many “tomorrow” means anything in the future, not just the next day. Because the word is misused, we can think the label could have been “mistakenly” attached to an already learned concept.) We can never no the truth of “when it starts” but we can easily see how it works. Every division is a false one. This is easy to see in the world of objects, but harder to see in the duality of “me” and “everything else” because the “me” is attached, or happens to, awareness. When thoughts, feelings, and other perceptions become entangled and even mistaken as awareness it becomes impossible to see that there is no central, separate, experiencing “I.” In fact, all those things—sights, sounds, thoughts, feelings, memories—arise in the eternal moment, without any central, separate, self needed . . . or there.

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.

Before I began I believed that “no-self” was a strange, mystical concept, that, at least, upon understanding what it meant, I would experience some ethereal feeling, however small. Of course, this is not at all what happens, because “no-self” is simple, is not “extra.” That is, life is exactly the same . . . all things that arose before (according to what my memory tells me now) continue to arise. But I know they arise to no one. Certain passions have died off a little in the past few months, but this was part of the whole process of investigation. I think the biggest change in the past few days was the end of a need to “get it” intellectually. Exactly why may remain a mystery.

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

The pointing at knowing as ungraspable but also the ultimate truth made a major difference. That I didn’t need to grasp, that “not understanding” was part of the truth allowed me to relax into it. Oddly this came in a second attempt that was to involve more “intellectual” discernment.

5) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How
does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

How could any “one” make a decision, or have control? When we look at this solitary moment it is either happening spontaneously or is a “result” of everything that has gone on before it. In either case, there is no individual, not even any part of a spectrum of experience, that can be said to have caused anything. If spontaneous, an “event” (already a false separation) is by definition causeless. If because of what happened before, then it is merely what had to be. The “sense” of choice, of will, happens because we have thoughts along with actions. I feel hunger so I grab an apple. The thought says “I fell hungry, I think I’ll get an apple” and then the thought (or further thoughts) think they were the cause of the apple getting. This can be applied to any choice or any thought. Why did I chose one shirt over another? Some set of conditions (or the entire set of conditions, if you will) put shirts in a certain place, weariness of a certain color was there, conditioned tastes from cultural influences, etc. All was set in motion, complex feelings to be sure, but happening of necessity and without any need for a “thought” or a self to think it.
Our very thoughts, which most “selves” think define ourselves more than anything, appear from some perceptual stimulus or from some pervious thought (also a perceptual stimulus). They come on their own. No one needs to think them. They alone think someone has thought them (or an additional thought “I am thunk” creates the someone that has thought them). I am responsible for nothing, for there is no I to which things could be responsible.
Often it is said that this moment is “life” expressing itself. But, really, there is no “life.” The conglomeration of matter, or energies, or pure consciousness, that makes up what we call life, is no different from the conglomerations that make up rocks and galaxies. There is stuff happening and it happens with awareness. What we call life is really a kind of flavor of awareness.

6) Anything to add?
Joseph K is a tireless, patient, compassionate, enthusiastic guide. He humored my over intellectualization of things, and always continued to steer me to the truth. I can hardly believe he stayed with me. There may be no me and there may be no him, but still, I feel eternally indebted to him (or, if you prefer, enteral indebtedness arises). Anyone who seeks no-self and draws him as a guide is lucky indeed.

[Josephkoudelka]

Hi hylas.

I'm going to have other guides take a look. If they have questions, I'll post them here.

Also, this could take a day or two, or not. :)

Joseph ♥︎

[Josephkoudelka]

Congratulations! You have officially crashed the gate hylas.

I am sending you a PM for additional information.

Thank you for this wonderful dialogue.

Joseph ♥︎