1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
There is no “I”. When asked, where is “I”, the experience feels like a dissolving into emptiness.
Thoughts and labels continue to create stories centred around this “I” but when these thoughts are traced back to the source there is nothing.
“I” is just the content of a thought, so no actual “I” has ever existed.
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.
When deep looking, the question is asked “where is I”? A feeling comes, like seeing many imaginary layers dissolving, leading to nothing……. no “I”, no “me”, no ”separate self” can be found. These imaginary layers that strip away are just empty thought patterns making up the illusion of the separate self. Its just a mental construct, a belief system, built up from a young age through the language and labels we absorbed from parents, friends, mentors and society norms. “I” is just a label.
We are born with tendencies that are compounded by learnt concepts such as “you” and “others”; “us” and “them”; “yours” and “mine”; “good” and “bad”; “right” and “wrong”; “hate” and “love”. These concepts come with built in judgement and expectations which separate us from our true nature. They are energy patterns conditioned to repeat, creating a false continuity and familiarity we become accustomed and comfortable with. We become isolated and disconnected from the raw experience of ‘what is’ actually happening now, moment by moment. We have become lost in the content of thought.
