Beginnings

[Luisa]

Hi Sophia,

It was my impression, Confirmed by other guides that you are just scratching the surface of the illusion of the self. This your answer confirms it once more. Conceptualy you got it but it doesn't seem that you got the experience of it.

It Frequently happens that old believes are replaced by new believes what refrains from going deeper in the looking.

I would like you to sit, settle your mind down, and read at my question several times. Empty your mind of old and NEW believes and thoughts, and answer the question.

How do you know that there is no 'I'?

Love
Luisa

[Sophia]

Hi Luisa...

How do you know that there is no 'I'?

I have no answer to this question and I have a response...

When I was at school, or since then, when a person with 'authority' would ask me a question, and ask it three times I would feel backed into a corner, that figure out mind needed to come up with a means to protect me, to get the answer to the question right, so I could get out of the corner, so I could feel relief, and that I would also know the answer...

This morning, with your question.... there is no corner to be backed into, there is no I to defend or protect, there is no figure out mind necessary to come up with an answer... there is no relief to feel... there is no need to know the answer... there is no other to impress... there is nothing more wishing to be said...

With warm regards, Sophia

[Luisa]

Dear Sophia,

I'm sincerely glad if you found that some areas of your past have healed.

I have no answer to this question...

Could 'not having an answer' be an answer?
I'm not trying to be philosophical here.

Could Santa Claus know that Santa Claus does not exist?


With much love
Luisa

[Sophia]

Luisa, your last line here is a fantastic question...

Could 'not having an answer' be an answer?

Yes it was...

Could Santa Claus know that Santa Claus does not exist?

I wouldn't like to talk for Santa here, depends how he's going with waking up... I understand he's busy most of the year making toys and by now will be feeding his reindeer ready for the long night!!!

Being, in human form, does have the opportunity to talk (whereas a blank canvas doesn't talk about the paint applied to it) about the appearances that appear in it... these appearances come and go, the sound of the skill saw outside comes and goes, thoughts about that sound come and go... - the paint isn't adhering to the canvas, it never was and never will.

There may have been thoughts/memories in the past where it felt like the paint did adhere to the canvas and it built up a picture of a 'me' called Sophia... that 'me' is like Santa... helpful during formative years perhaps, not now...

With warm regards indeed... Sophia

[Luisa]

Hi Sophia,

Helpful during formative years, not now...

It seems that I can not find the way for you to shift from conceptualisation to look at things in actual experience. I have the impression with your last answer that we have gone backwards.

I try again with the same question but at the same time I will ask for help to find a different way that may be more helpful for you.

The question is simple, but you continue not answering the question.

I will try for a third time here.

Santa is an illusion, can an illusion know that she is an illusion?

With love,
Luisa

[Sophia]

Hi Luisa... I am sorry if there is any frustration... I will respond again...

Santa is an illusion, can an illusion know that she is an illusion?

I find this such a cogitative question - that first up my mind tries to 'answer' the question... When I sit with the question longer... not pondering it, not trying to solve, not trying... allowing it to be - and then responding when a response is there then that is what has happened the past few days.

Now the thought comes up, is the question being asked just a yes/no question - and the way it is written it is... my response to the question then is no.

But this response doesn't seem to respond to anything... it might answer a question (and the answer may be right or wrong) but it isn't a response... Am I making a holy grail out of 'response?' I have been asked from the beginning of this process to respond, not from theory, not from belief, not from past, not from expectation... rather to respond honestly...

I don't know how to say it more clearly... by 'it' I mean my response to your question. If my response is wrong - so be it and maybe a whole different line of questioning needs to be approached, if my response is right then so be it to... I'm happy to respond to any questions...

I am not frustrated as said yesterday (albeit differently) and want to continue for as long as the process seems to need to be continued... I have written explaining my process because maybe that gives an in for a different line of questioning...

With great trust and appreciation... Sophia

[Luisa]

Hi Sophia,

There are not right or wrong answers. But the answers show at what point we are in the process.

So yes I'm going to prepare for a different and fresh aproach, and I'll be back to you as soon as possible.

Much love,
Luisa

[Sophia]

Thanks Luisa...

I've just been out to dinner and on the way home i thought about our conversation of the past few days.

My sense is that there isn't any going backwards because once the self is seen through it is seen through... nada...

I feel it is more around ways of communicating that experience of the end of self... that didn't have a beginning either...

a couple of days ago I described it as "there is no corner to be backed into, there is no I to defend or protect, there is no figure out mind necessary to come up with an answer... there is no relief to feel... there is no need to know the answer... there is no other to impress... there is nothing more wishing to be said..." At that point I wasn't necessarily describing a healing - I was describing the experience of the end of the 'I'... I'm not sure it was read like that...

So if it is the way I am communicating please accept my apologies... I'm not wishing to make it easier or harder for you or for me... just to express 'my' experience of it....

Go well indeed.... Sophia

[Luisa]

Thank you, Sophia,

I'm going to give you the final questions again, please have a fresh look to them and answer as if was the first time you do it.

Dont relay on thoughts or imagination, once more answer only from actual experience:






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?

Love,
Luisa

[Sophia]

Hi Luisa, will do...

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

In looking for an entity 'self/me/I' just now, there isn't anyone behind the looking, there isn't anyone owning the looking, there isn't anyone driving the looking - and the looking didn't find a self... there is breathing and heart beating and sensations of warmth in the body and nobody managing any of it. Was there ever? No, if it can't be found now, there can't ever have been one because it hasn't just died.

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.

I'm not sure when it started for me...my earliest memories are of being in a playpen on the lawn while my mother was hanging clothes on the clothes line - I must have been between 2 and 3 years old. I do remember feeling separate from her as she was 'over there' and I was here playing on a rug - I don't remember internal narration about that though... but I did of course respond to my name being mentioned, that was different from my brothers... That would have begun very early and by the time I was four I have some memories of kindergarten where there were others who would or wouldn't play with me and trying to figure out how to get other children to play with me... I was also the only girl in the family so I had my own bedroom so these all contributed to feeling a separate self... at school at five... there was a me trying to fit in, sit on the mat right like the others and like the teacher asked me to. With Catechism starting that year, I began to learn that I needed to be a good girl if I wanted God to look favourably on me and to get the big prize of heaven later... so an entity of a 'me' Sophia was certainly establishing itself well and truly as it was for all others around me. This sense of a separate self continued to solidify, because there was nothing and no one in my life questioning it - it was how this 'system' of being a girl growing up was... no need to go into all the pressures on each girl growing up in the 50's and 60's but it was essentially to marry, have children and to replicate it all for others... At 23 I came across Buddhism and learnt a form of meditation - but with little other teaching or support - but the idea of meditation as to relieve my own suffering (and in times that of others) so I was feeling sufficiently restless within by then to look for some relief from this sense of Sophia, who had responsibilities, pressures, expectations, inadequacies etc... so this illusion of a separate self is well advanced and feels as real as anything... in fact more real as it is so personal, so unique...

As I write this now, as I see it now, it feels so poignant to express the tyranny of it, the power of it, the colonisation of this sense of self for 'me' and all others...

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.

It feels a relief, like a weight has been lifted... right now there is sadness too that such a weight has been carried for so long - that others carry it too... In the past few days with this LU process having some turns there have been opportunities to see the 'commentator' arise and fall away, what is has to say doesn't stick, there's nothing to stick to... even though there seems to have been some confusion - it has felt as if that has been lying on the softest bed of the freshest linen... right now there is softness, openness, gentleness...

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

Right now its hard to remember... (I haven't reread this thread and it feels days/weeks ago - it might not be) - nothing is coming to mind, I don't want or need to make anything up...

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.

Now that I read this question I think it relates to a thought/sense that came with the above question. It doesn't feel that any volition of 'mine' pushed me over, made me look. It doesn't feel that I had any choice or control or free will in it... it was going to happen anyway or not... That I can't take responsibility for any of it... what does feel truer to say is that there is the capacity to respond and there is no ownership of the response... For example - I woke at 2.30am, but its not as if 'I' did the waking up... sleep finished as I needed to go to the toilet... the thought arose that while I was up I could respond to these questions - so I did/am and it is now 3.15am... Am I responsible for that thought/idea? no... I responded to the idea when it presented itself but I wasn't responsible for the idea in the first place, or responsible for responding... but language lets itself down here...

6) Anything to add?

Not right now Luisa... for whatever reason, thank you for the opportunity for responding to these questions twice...

May you be well, Sophia...

[Luisa]

Dear Sophia,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to these questions again. I have the impression that it has been very helpful for both of us, it has been for me.

One more question arises just to clarify your answer to question 2.

What would you say is what makes the illusion of the self feel real?

[Sophia]

Hi Luisa...

[/quote]What would you say is what makes the illusion of the self feel real?

Believing, or not questioning, thoughts that begin with: I'm doing, I'm going, I'm managing, I'm controlling, I'm feeling, I'm thinking, I need, I want, I stand for, I'm against, I'm with, I'm for... the 'possessive pronoun' I think it is called and believing that there is an experience of a self behind the 'I' that is doing, going, managing, controlling etc...

It did feel like a oneness... but a 'oneness' of just me/I/mine and everything else was outside of this... so an isolated 'oneness...' that was living a life with lots of others doing the same...

With thanks, Sophia

[Sophia]

Luisa, I 'm going away for the weekend so won't be back for 48 hours...

When hanging out washing this morning I remembered that the self that arose through believing in thoughts that began with: I need, I want, I'm controlling, I'm managing, I give up etc. began with hearing: you will, will you please, Sophia come here, Sophia look at this, Sophia please bring... so that seemed of course to point to a self being Sophia, so 'I' began...

Have a good weekend yourself too... Sophia

[Luisa]

Hi Sophia,

Thank you for letting me know about your weekend plans.

Nevertherless, your questions have been passed to other guides in order to get their feedbacks, as you already know this can take a few days.

I will let you know, as soon as possible, how to proceed either if they bring up any clarfying questions or a confirmation that the process has conclude.

Have a beautiful weekend ahead.

With love,
Luisa

[Luisa]

Dear Sophia,

Thank you very very much. I have no more questions.
You should be recieving a PM from one of our admins.

You are through.

Lots of Love,
Luisa