Postby LoveMandala » Wed Apr 01, 2020 8:55 am
Hi Stafford,
I am trying to find time amidst the busyness to work on the questions. I was going to tackle them two at a time but eventually realised that they are quite interconnected, and that it would be better to send you them all in one go. Its a lot of writing though. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Question 1: Is there a separate 'self', 'me', 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
No - there are no separate selves, and there never were any separate selves. There is an 'appearance' of separate selves, but when we look closely, nothing in those apparent selves is ‘personal’. Selves are just aggregations of non-personal elements, and nothing can be found in our experience, to which a ‘self’ can be attributed. While I still use the words ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘my’, there is now an awareness that this is just a necessary convention for relational functioning in relative existence.
Question 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 a you see it now.
For me the most fundamental aspect of the self-illusion, is the fact the experience of Consciousness that we take to be separate, subjective and personal, simply is not. Rather Consciousness is objective and collective – best thought of an infinite field in which everything rests; and in which everything is connected and unified.
The apparent 'I' at the centre of all the thinking, sensing, evaluating, desiring, and acting, is not a personal self, but a mysterious unknowable universal observer and experiencer – and this, paradoxically, is what gives rise to the illusion of a self. When we release our habitual personalisation of Consciousness and recognise that Consciousness is better thought of as the space in which everything is happening, we naturally begin to release our identifications with the perceiving and decision-making processes that were previously taken as evidence of a self.
Similarly, the will is not personal. Everything is happening on its own - all motivations are impersonal and universal, and ultimately inseparable from the field of Consciousness. Our apparent sense of a personal will, or of personal needs, is just an identification with volitional energies that are actually non-personal.
Question 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.
For the last few years I have been practicing a form of the Zen ‘just sitting’, where I just rest ‘as’ the ‘empty’ non-personal Consciousness and notice the multidimensional, spacious, and intangible way in which that Consciousness finds embodiment. I find that the feeling tone of this sense of Presence is of appreciation, ease, contentment, and aliveness.
The LU dialogue process has heightened and broadened this felt experience, and appears to have expanded it much more into my interpersonal life. In recent weeks, when called upon to describe my experience, I notice that I am mostly bearing witness to the appreciative, empathetic and embracing quality of Presence – its kindness, love, and compassionate responsiveness; and its wish to connect.
Question 4: What was the last bit that pushed you over?
The release of self-view has caused a subtle disinhibition process in which old psychological patterning has unravelled. While there is a sense that that the healing continues, it appears to have generally become a very quiet, and restful process. It is difficult to identify the most significant turning point, but for me the recognition of the way that human needs arise from the presence of universal non-personal energies has been very profound. I repeatedly find that where there were previously anxious experiences of lack, that would have strongly affirmed a sense of seIf, I instead discover a paradoxical inner completeness, and the presence of non-personal life energies that are evolutionary, beneficial, and compassionate.
This has profoundly changed the way I think about life, and experience feeling processes. It has also changed my experience of the physical body. There is a new sense of ease, flow, spontaneity, vitality, and a relaxed, appreciative, body-awareness – and this is experienced concurrently with a very keen awareness of my vulnerability and mortality as a human being.
Question 5: Please describe decision, intention, free-will, choice, and control. What makes things happen? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.
Whether we are still within the self-illusion or not, judgments are made by a combination of logical, or thinking-based approaches to decision-making, or feeling-based evaluative or processes, based on conscious or unconscious memory. If we personalise our experience, the illusion of egoic decision-making then becomes an illusion of egoic intention, and this in turn becomes the illusion of egoic action and control, through our belief in a personal will.
When we release the personalising idea that there is a personal will, the impersonal volitional processes continue, but they transform, and those that remain no longer have an egoic character – the drive for egoic control releases; there is a capacity to let everything be as it is; and to rest in a sense of appreciation and uncaused happiness. As before, everything is happening on its own, but there is an emergence of qualities of relaxation, balance, empathy and self-empathy – so seeing through self-view leads to a natural ethics and spontaneous compassionate engagement.
The question of responsibility is a tricky one. Within the egoic illusion, people will often deny responsibility for situations and processes that were caused by their actions. This denial of responsibility serves to protect the self-image, and may take the form of either dishonesty or self-delusion. Ultimately however, there are no ‘persons’ to which responsibility can be attributed, and those who see through the illusion of self-view, recognise that all their previous actions were conditioned. For example, in my own experience I have experienced processes of grief, remorse and regret as I reflect back over my life, but there is no guilt – at least not the emotion of guilt as it usually experienced and understood. While we may come to see very clearly how our patterns of thinking and behaviour have caused harm and are strongly motivated to change, we can recognise that, from the absolute perspective we were not responsible.
Question 6: Anything to add?
I am happy to leave that last question blank. I may come up with some additional reflections - but nothing at present.
Once again wishing you health and ease. It sounds like that food delivery job is one of the best jobs you could have at this time. At least you get be out and about and still earning while others are losing their jobs or stuck at home. I guess you need to take care though. I hope that is going ok.
Much love to you and yours,
Will
