Hello Vivien,
Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?
Was there ever?
No, there never was, is not now, and never will be. This is the grand illusion.
2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience.
It is the illusion that there is a separate entity or self, in this case labelled “Jen”, that started from very early childhood and being told over and over again that I was a separate thing. Then, I started to believe and identify with that separate thing called Jen, believing it to be a separate “me”, with it’s own body, story, ideas, thoughts.
Describe it fully as you see it now.
Now, it is what gets caught up, or believed to be the “hero” of the story of “Jen”. The illusory individual “me” that has all these percieved problems, good times, bad times, relationships, dramas, thoughts, a body, bodily identifications, etc. that make up a separate Jen.
But, there is no separate Jen. There is no separate anything. There are labels, constructs, and thought forms that we believe to be real and separate things, people, distances, time and space, which are all illusory.
3) How does it feel to see this?
It is freeing, and as if a light has been turned on. But it is also the cause of much turmoil for the false self, as it wants to continue to believe it exists as a separate self named Jen . Even though I have seen through the self, and have had the direct experience of no-self, it’s almost as if the false self wants validation, wants to be believed as being real (and is now having temper tantrums). This happens to this body/mind most frequently as a solar plexus “punch”, which gets assigned an illusory meaning. For example, there is a sensation in what is labelled the solar plexus. It gets labelled as “stress”. It relates to , or happens during work. There is an incident at work that my story states I am responsible for. So this sensation in the solar plexus gets labelled “stress” and gets attached to the “Jenself”, which now feels stressed. The sensation becomes identified as being “a me”, or part of “me, Jen”. When it is only a sensation that has been labelled, and attached with a thought that “Jen is stressed' and this is due to this event at work'. Thus, the illusion is created: “This work situation is difficult and stressful to me”. The false self is not taking annihilation lightly! So, you could say at this point in time the experience is LOTS of uncomfortable sensations and thoughts coming up that the false self is tempted to cling to, but now, since looking, and looking again and again, they are not “sticking”. But it is very very uncomfortable, with all the gut punches! The beauty of it is though, in all of the uncomfortableness of the sensations, these are the red flags that say, LOOK!!! LOOK!! DO YOU SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING???
What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.
When I read back from my very beginning posts, I see that now I have clear seeing, or at least much, much clearer seeing about what the no self is and what it is not. Additionally, I see quite clearly that I had many misperceptions and fears. There is nothing to fear about reality.
4) What was the last bit that pushed you over; made you look?
I don’t think I fully understand this question…..do you mean recently as last bit, or last bit in a general way, relative to my entire process of looking?
5) a) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how things happen and how things work.
These are all constructs. There is no decision maker, no intention, no free will, no choice and no one or thing in control. Nothing makes things happen, there is just seeing, hearing, touching, tasking, smelling, thinking. It all just happens.
When I resist what happens, what is just unfolding, then there is suffering. Allowing what is to be and being in the flow, with not trying to change, control,label, make different what is, is how it is seen that the seer , seeing and what is seen is the same. This goes for, hearing, hearer, heard; thinking, thinker, thought, etc.……it is all one.
b) What are you responsible for? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how this works.
Nothing. Suffering happens when I think I “should” do this, or “want” it to be this way, or “have” to figure it out. There is no one who has to figure out anything. It all IS. When I resist nothing and allow it all to unfold, I find I am part of the greater whole, and need do nothing. “I” just “know” what to do. I do nothing, “It” does me.
6) Anything to add?
Yes. It seems that all the illuory me’s are part of the greater whole of Light/Love that are mistakenly perceiving Light as separate entities, which are all the contructs of thoughts, concepts, labels, stories, bodies, that make up the vast illusion of separateness.
love,
Jen
