1) Is there a 'me', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever? how about self, is there anything that is separate from everything else?
Is there a me in any shape or form? No, there is only Being - life manifesting through this form, this consciousness, this particular set of conditioned beliefs/interpretations/habitual ways of relating to the world. There never has been a 'me'. Only thoughts of 'me' and 'I'. Only memories recorded in this brain/body and stories built out of those memories and projected forwards into an imaginary future.
What sees all of this, what recognises it, is awareness. And awareness is not separate from anything or anyone. It is neutral, all-encompassing and Now. There is no separate self. There never has been. Just a dance of shadows, of reflections. The mistake made is to confuse what sees with what is reflected. To think that thoughts are controlled or chosen by some central and distinct self - the fat controller in the engine room. ;-) But there is no controller. No matter how I look, I cannot find one - because the one who thinks she is "I" or "me" looking, is just another thought flowing through this mind-body awareness.
2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works.
To the best of my understanding and experience, and acknowledging that there may be deeper layers of truth to discover about this, the concept of self begins in childhood. Others say around age 2 or 3. I can't remember my psychology well enough to state this as a fact, nor remember when my own consciousness - or rather this consciouness became identified with a 'me'. I've watched these little selves develop in my children...as they gradually individuate from their mother, as they experience the pain of separation, or physical pain when their bodies are hurt, as they hear adults talking about them with labels, including names and descriptions... Surrounded by unconscious adults who also believe they are separate selves, who resist life, judge it, judge each other, judge their children and try to control and shape their children, to cultivate certain personality traits and to eliminate others.
Unfortunately the negative traits that are battled with become as strong as the positive traits that are praised and nurtured. And as the child grows older he or she becomes more and more identified with habitual ways of thinking and behaving. Depending on the child, there may be very painful feelings of separation and loss early in life - these feelings of loss often associated with parents or parental figures. And so the search for love/belonging/connectedness is turned outwards. Later this may become the search for God. Or success and adulation from one's friends. Or fame. Or romance. Desperately we seek some half-forgotten and half-remembered state of wholeness and completion, not understanding that the more we seek, the further we travel from its source - which is within. The individual mind-body consciousness accumulates memories and experiences and having confused itself with these early in life, the weight of self often becomes greater as life progresses and one is more and more disconnected from the Now.
3) How does it feel to see this? describe in detail.
It feels like remembering something I've always known, but forgot long ago, or only understood intellectually. It feels like turning inwards for the love/belonging/connectedness I've always sought. It feels like laughing at the shadow play I confused for myself and ’the other’ and turning my face back to the sun. It feels like being flooded with love and kindness, an inner and an outer melting away of resistance. It feels like accepting, accepting and accepting, moment after moment. And when there is not acceptance, knowing it is only a thought. Seeing the pointlessness of arguing with that thought or trying to change it, because all the arguments are just other thoughts, thoughts divided against each other, thoughts divided from now. And as soon as there is recognition of the thoughts, then there is sinking back into the being - not some remembered or idealised state, but a direct experience of whatever is happening now. It might be fear. And even that is a label. When you take away the label, ther is just energy, moving through. And it's amazing how quickly it passes when you don't label it or make a story out of it.
Here's a funny illustration. Last night I heard a tapping sound, woke up and went out of my room, as I came back in I saw the shape of someone's head outside the window. Thought put this image together with the sound of the tapping and suddenly I had a story about someone trying to get in. Now alongside this thinking there was energy in the body - a sudden alertness which built into heart thumping and adrenalin surging as the story developed. And then suddenly I realised the light from my open doorway was casting shadows - my shadow on the blind, and it was only the wind tapping the blind on the window frame that had made the noise. Seeing the thoughts, which wanted to connect with other stories and memories of intruders or would-be-intruders, I was able to let them go, to be present with the energy moving through my body. This passed quickly and I fell back to sleep.
How else does it feel? Specific differences. Whole body is much more relaxed. Chronic pain and tightness in my lower abdomen is diminishing. Habit of worrying (a huge one for me in the past) seems to have gone out the window. Is seen that worry is a projection of self into the future, which is impossible and pointless - is really just thought telling itself stories now about what might or might not happen. This thinking creates the illusion of a me that is separate. An easy solution is simply to become present again. This feels like awareness or Being waking up to itself - waking up from a bad dream.
Overall, it feels like a deep knowing that I am not my thoughts. That I am this beingness, this unnameable energy/presence/awareness. And there are memories recorded in this consciousness of all boundaries melting away altogether, of being utterly at one with the world. Of knowing without a doubt that there is no separate self, only life manifesting, the invisible taking refuge in the visible. A shadow-play, a game, in which all of life takes part.
4) How would you describe it to somebody who has never heard about this illusion but is curious about it.
I would ask them to sit quietly, probably somewhere in nature, to look around them, to see what they see, feel, hear, smell - and then to remove any labels that come up. And to see what happens when the tree is seen without the label. There's no trick to this, as I once imagined. There's nothing thought can do with this. It's really about connecting with your beingness. Feel the tree in your whole being. As the tree moves, can you feel that movement inside you. Or the shape of the tree, how do you respond to this inwardly. Not how would you describe it with words or stories, but how does it make you feel.
Now for some, this exercise might be difficult,as it was for me when I was younger and had a teacher who used the direct pointing method, because I was so totally identified with my thoughts. But always there is a chink in the armour - some doorway or window through which an awareness of being can be glimpsed. Perhaps by listening to music, by drawing”, by smelling, or by being held by a loved one.
So then I would say, once they have felt that beingness through observation of the outside world, to turn the same sensitive looking inwards. It's definitely NOT an intellectual looking. And it may be helpful to meditate for a short while, to observe one's thoughts arising and falling, or passing by like clouds in the sky, and then to see what is there between the thoughts and after the thoughts. To look at this awareness without labelling it, and then to look for the 'I' or 'me' that chooses what to see, what to feel, what to hear. To discover for oneself if there is any chooser. No one else can really explain this - and it doesn't help if they do. You have to see it for yourself. To observe very closely the movement of thought - and how identification with these thoughts creates the illusion of self. Self choosing. Self thinking. Self in conflict with self. Self remembering. And often the memories are inconsistent, as are the beliefs.
It's important also to watch closely the interaction between thought and emotions. This is something I'm still investigating, but it seems to me the thoughts come first before the emotions we recognise as anger, jealousy, love etc. Before thoughts there are feelings and a movement of energy through the body - but these are much more subtle and ephemeral than they become after thought has labelled them and claimed them and added them to the story of self. Thinking flattens experience, makes it two-dimensional. We are profoundly sensitive complex beings and much that we experience and feel is far far beyond description or understanding. It simply is. And if we don't identify with it, if we just feel it then life keeps flowing through us like the river, or the wind.
So, in short, I would probably give the exercises that were given to me by Derek and John. First: perceiving without labels and looking to see if there is a me that is aware or chooses. And then John's exercise of unlabelling what is seen and then turning the awareness 180 degrees to look within and unlabel that - whatever is sensed. I think this was when understanding began to blossom in me and identification with thought lessened dramatically and settled more deeply into nameless being.
5) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look? was there a specific moment when seeing happened or was it gradual? what exactly happened?
It's been gradual. I've had several experiences of oneness that I can remember - the first when I was nineteen, running over some sand dunes towards the sea, when suddenly there was no me, no boundaries - just everything all one and the purest joy. Once more, age 23. Then 17 years ago a very clear seeing that there is no separate self and the deepest peace and connectedness ever experienced by this consciousness. I've already talked about that and how it was lost, but never forgotten. The jungle of thought grew tall again and I still believed there was an 'I' to be transcended, to be dissolved. And so 'my' search continued.
The tipping point began with the exercises Derek gave me and momentum built strongly after John's exercise of unlabelling what is seen and then what is seeing - that 180 degree flip. And a glimpse there is no boundary between the two. And a realisation that I am that unlabelled awareness. Since then, thoughts and stories gradually less seductive - held more lightly.
What's beautiful for me this time is that there is no need to deny the validity of the human experience. No need to identify with non-duality, to make another image out of this for myself. I feel as though the two can run along beside each other side-by-side and that I am no better nor no worse than any other human being. That we all have more or less moments of forgetting who we are, and we all have moments in which we are awake: when we are present without judgement or resistance, accepting what is now.
I also know there is nothing for me to do but to keep surrendering. And there is no one to surrender. All that is meant by surrender is turning one's awareness back to the light, to Being, to Now. There is no-one to resist - only thoughts that separate. As soon as they are seen as thought, they melt away.
Thanks, John. Let me know if you'd like clarification on any of these points.
Kind regards,
Nicola
