Thank you for your answers - beautiful!
Let me just clarify a few things before we move on - I guess its mostly different concepts we use, but anyway, here we go:
Is it anywhere else? Where does it seem to be?No, Alex, in my direct experience, there is no such entity.
Yes, ultimately it does. There are levels though. Seeing through the illusion of a separate self will slowly dismantle the belief in this entity and the conditioning that has been acquired, but it will still leave all your other conceptual knowledge intact. You function in society. If all of it goes... if all conceptual knowledge goes, then... well... who knows..? :-)The illusion allows us to operate here, without it we couldn't function.
That is good the hear!I feel like things are less significant, there's nothing to get my panties in a twist about, really, all is well. Not like over the top joyous awesomeness, more like a low-level contentment, a background sense of being pleased with all of it.
We have to be precise about that. There is the illusion of a separate entity/I/self and there is all the conceptual knowledge that has been acquired that supports the illusion in action but as well allows you to function in society.the usefulness of this illusion of 'I'... that helped me see that I didn't have to get rid of the 'I', that I really never would get rid of it, because I am it. How can 'I' get rid of 'I'?
The illusion of I is nothing particular useful, rather the opposite, but the knowledge that shapes the illusion is also something quite useful in daily life. Ultimately all conceptual knowledge adds to the illusion and thus can be useful in one way, but counter productive in another... Yes, it defines this I, but also others and the world...
Seeing that this is so and that the knowledge is perfectly fine to be used, but that all references to I or other, subject and object are really just something that has been learned and does not define a separate identity (or separation in general). Do you see what I am pointing at?
So, yes, how should I get rid of I? You can't deliberately do that and you also don't have to because its just a concept, you just have to see that this is so. Do you?
This is maybe a somewhat tricky example...I decided on asking him to look at his intentions when he starts a task.... I really like the way that sounds, I like thinking of myself as someone who manages that way, but on some level it seems like so much bullshit as well, at the same time. But it's what I've got, it's how we communicate. I can use it, and let it use me, but it all seems a little hollow right now, a little silly.
When you say you decided to ask him about his intentions and then you say that you like to see yourself as someone who manages things in this way... this is also BS but its simply what happens... ok...
So when you made this decision to ask a certain question - where did this decision come from? Who made it?
Was it a decision at all that was made or did a thought simply appear that this should be the question to be asked?
Do you know for sure that you will ask this question tomorrow?
Can you maybe find another, simple example?
Regards,
Alex
