......of course we're not what we thought we were?. Nor doing the thinking of the thoughts about us ?!? Wow Amazing Right, Which of course the Word Amazing is Spelled with the Words A Maze !?! And people Wonder why we're Lost !!! If You Really look at This Whole thing, is There Any Real Way Too understand This so called Life Space Earth Infinity, Not I Dare Say !!!
Hi Stafford,
Thanks for your double post, that Maze bit really made me smile!!! Yes, it is all ridiculous but also 'just what it is' I guess. I think I should begin to answer the questions as best I can...... Do you mind if I just deal with the first tonight, I'm feeling knackered!!!
1.Is there a seperate entity, 'self', 'me', 'I', at all anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
My answer
The question is formed through words which have socially and historically formed meanings. When I look at a tea-cup I know that 'tea-cup' is just a convenient label and not 'what it really is'. In fact it isn't really any 'thing', it's 'thingness' depends on what a 'being' uses it for. An ant may see it / sense it as an obstacle with a slippery surface to be crossed. An angry wife may see it as a convenient weapon to throw at her husband when he spends all of their spare money on meditation books from Amazon. A sailor might bail out his sinking ship with it. It is called a 'tea-cup' because we choose to agree on a convenient label to make life easier to communicate with each other. It makes it easier to go and buy a 'tea-cup' from a 'shop', even if we then go and drink coffee from it! (Although bear in mind an Ant isn't really an ant and a sailor isn't really a sailor!!!).
Like the 'tea-cup' we have learned to use the words 'self', 'I', 'me' to make life easier. But if you reflect on these words in 'your' mind, they seem to become blurry and dissolve. 'I' am 'me'....... This seems ridiculous. There appears to be something that's doing something, that has some kind of awareness, that I call 'me'..... but in reality it's all very dubious and questionable. It's convenient to refer to 'I', 'me' and 'myself', but they appear to just be labels to try to make sense out of the completely unknown. It completely screws up 'getting enlightened', 'self-realized' etc etc....... who gets enlightened? Who can get 'self-realized'. Maybe the most we can know, is that we cant really know anything because the duality of the 'Knower' and the 'Known' is a false / faulty understanding. .......... Any attempt to name, label or try to describe our situation is totally fucked...... But that's good, because that's where the eternal mystery is. (Although the concept of 'mystery' is also a false construction.......
I think I have been taught and conditioned to 'feel separate', to believe in the story of the 'I'.... To wonder what / who 'I' was in a last life and what 'I' will be like after this coming death......... It's just that it doesn't really have to be seen in that way, there is no 'you' moving through time..... there is no time moving at all......... There is just an energy that we call 'thought' (we call it that out of convenience because we don't know what it is and never can really know because there's no 'knower').
In conclusion...... there is no conclusion.......the world and ourselves are constructions of something we call mind.... but even that as a description is totally bullshit!
with love,
Someone known as Dave................