Only this

[Baremind255]

Hi Elad,
I had answered four of the questions already and saved them as a draft, because I couldn't answer all of them at the same time.
The draft didn't load and all my questions are erased.
Can you advise me how to save my answers and then come back to continue?
Is there no way to do that, which means I need to answer all of them at once?

Thank you for your help!

[Elad]

Ugh, sorry, that is frustrating. My recommendation would be to copy and paste the questions into a word document and answer there, and copy and paste back.

[Baremind255]

Thank you very much Elad, that's a great idea and it will be easier to work with. I will do that.
Thanks again 🙂

[Elad]

🙏🤍

[Baremind255]

Hi Elad,

Here are the answers to the questions:

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

No, there is no separate self to be found anywhere. There are sensations felt and thoughts arise, but they only refer to themselves.

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.

I feel that it is only a thought claiming to be someone. Upon close examination even the sensing of the body or a body part are just merely thoughts. When the mind shuts up for a second, then there is nothing to inform anybody about a body and even a sensation becomes a mystery, when there is no mind labeling it as a sensation.
I can’t even relate to the “I am sense”. I can’t find an “I” in sensing, besides the sensing itself.
Emotions arise, sensations are felt and a thought that says I feel…or I think…, creates the illusion that there is a subject to whom the emotion or thought is happening to.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before we started this dialogue?

There is a sense of freedom felt, but doubt thoughts can also easily arise when they aren’t recognized as such.

4) What was the moment(s) where clarity clicked; describe what happened.

I can’t say for sure that it was a specific moment. I think it happened gradually.
However, recently one day, a thought arose saying:” I am a thought happening to no one.”
At first, I thought what a stupid thought this is, but when I looked closer at it, I sensed even though it was just a thought, it pointed to a truth. This “I” was always just a thought happening to no one. There never was another “I” besides the thought of it. The “I” thought was always just referring to a though itself and all other thoughts, explicitly not saying this, are still only thoughts happening to one. There is truly no other I besides in the thoughts themselves.

5) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control (separately).

Decision: I can see that the decision maker is just a thought, but at the same time, there is the following sequence is seen: A thought arises saying I am going to close the window and the body gets up and does that. It is clear though that the “I” here is just a thought. Even though without the arising thought that the window should be closed, the body would probably not get up to do that, the thought itself pertains to a subject that only exists in thought itself.
Intention: Here again, it’s the mind that claims there is someone who sets an intention. This is just a concept that makes no sense in direct experience.
Free will: This one is closely related to the decision maker. Thought is arising claiming an I that has free will and is the decision maker. Without a thought there is no evidence of free will, because only a thought can claim that I am free to choose this over that.
Choice and control: I think a lot of these things ultimately relate to the sense that the mind wants to claim that it is in control, when it claims choice, free will or decision, it all comes back to the sense of I am in control, I can make things happen or I can avoid them.
This happens constantly, even though it is exactly that, which is creating the suffering.
Seeing or realizing that there is no one who can control, push or pull on experience, there is a sense of freedom that arises.

6) What makes things happen? How does it work?

I think that is a mystery. I can go into a story, but ultimately I don’t know. I don’t know how it works. I now realize that all along I thought I knew, but ultimately that is not true. It was always just thoughts claiming to know the unknowable.

7) What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

I don’t know, if I can be responsible for anything at all. For some reason,
thoughts can no longer be believed like they used to. I can’t find the “I” in experience that could or couldn’t be responsible for anything.

8) Anything to add?

Everything said here came from questioning my own processing and close examination of my experience. However, this is clear when I am focused on this.
The recognition is not constantly there and I can’t claim that “I” thoughts are recognized as such all the time.

[Elad]

Dear Kathy,

3 other guides looked and had no further questions. So you officially graduated LU 🙃 As you know, there is no one to own that, maintain that, etc, except in a story. One of the guides had one comment to you: "Yes, clarity comes and goes, like everything else" (without a self to hold on to it or control it).

So, what from here? Life continues, exploration and discovery continues. Healing and growing up and flourishing continues.... I like the language of Buddhism with absolute and relative level of reality. We have seen that on the absolute level there is no separate controlling sense. This seeing over time can infuse surrender, humility, humor, kindness into life. At the same time on the relative (conventional/relational) level, we continue to be us. We continue to need to take care of life. We continue to have feelings about our story, our memories, our relationships. We even continue to have a more or less healthy sense of self and way of treating ourselves and can develop that...

Let me know how this meets you and if you have any wishes for something explore now? And we will also talk about other options...

[Elad]

Typo: We have seen that on the absolute level there is no separate controlling *self*