I would love some guidance.

[Zinfandel]

Hi A!
I had this moment of seeing 2 days ago. It followed giving up the struggle and finally (!) not expecting fireworks. It was so simple... (Told me, right? :)
Then I slipped right back into old habits, and thought ok, was this really something?
But I soon realized this is just the way it flows for me now :)

So regarding the questions, fire at will, captain!

[Zinfandel]

I mean that the flow is full of old habits, seeing them. Process evolving...

But also seeing things in a different way, etc...

[Andrew White]

Hi Mike,

Only you can say if the illusion of self has been fully realised, you are your own authority on this. It's my goal to support you for as long as that support is needed. Seeing the illusion of self is abit like the optical illusion where you suddenly spot the Dalmation dog walking in front of the spotty wallpaper - once it's seen, it can't be unseen. But after it's seen habits and tendencies can still arise.

If you'd like to have a go at the questions below just answer as before from direct experience. You can answer all at once or one at a atime and take as long as you like.

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

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.

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.

4. What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

5. Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen? Give examples from your experience.

Anything you would like to add?

Look forward to your answers.

Take care,

Andrew

[Zinfandel]

Okidoki, here goes.

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

Nope. There isn’t. There never has been. (There were some reports of a small self found in an excavation in central Europe, but they were quickly dismissed - Sorry, disregard the ‘need’ for being funny).

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.

It is a thought construct that follows quite naturally from the way our lives are organized and work. Even though people get f-n angry at discovering that there was an erroneous assumption, nobody constructed this out of malice.

We are verbal creatures, and it’s easy to refer to another being by a name, thus a label.
As babies we are called a name, and are repeatedly told that we are that name. We are also told that we are ‘I’ and ‘me’.
Human brains have evolved to be economical and thus tend to categorize things in small easily handled units. Therefore categories of behaviors of a human organism are mixed in with the label and the person is taught that doing this or that in this way is “being so and so”. So as children we learn that “I am shy” “When people scream and feel high energy and want to lash out they are angry, thus I am angry now” and so on.

So instead of seeing the truth that the name, and the pronoun is just a help for referring to an organism and the behaviors associated with it, it develops into being treated as if it is an entity.

It’s the same thing with the sense of a self. It is a practical tool for interacting with life and other forms of life, but there are lots of problems associating the sense and the thought construct with being a physical reality.

I for instance have invested lots of time in trying to maintain the story of "me and the perception of me by others" where I could’ve just realized that life goes on, and there really aren’t any 'others' either.

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.

Initially it felt like, "What? I’ve spent time investing in this?" And really the famous “Was this IT?”-question came up. I have since had longer periods of a somewhat calm. It’s a little bit like chilling a little and looking differently at the world, just allowing myself to be a part of a big picture that stretches in all directions. Everything is like a big life process hanging together.

I had after my first real SEEING (since earlier I was mostly trying to convince myself intellectually of these facts) some hours later an episode where I in retrospect felt like everything was back to 'myself'. Judging, protecting, trying to control my future. But then wham, there was lucidity again. A sense of it being fundamentally OK that there is no control.

This has happened several times since my first “Aha!”, and it seems as if this is the way the process flows for me now:
I get hooked and selfing habits ensue, but it’s like there has always hitherto been a moment where I see that “Ahh, this is that habit”, and the sensations become more of an aspect of the ongoing.

What stands out most of all it’s just this feeling of being part of it all, and not being so special (feels like I’ve read this several times here, and now it’s actually pretty nice knowing this).

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

After being guided and discussing for a period of time, one day the thought was like: “But I’m still actually struggling. I say that I am so relaxed and open, but I am trying to fit this into a precreated mold” and “I say that I am not expecting some special experience, but I am. Just go with it probably being mundane and not very earth shattering”. I just relaxed (the guiding occasioned my relaxing!).
That same day, I listened to some LU audio, and heard some reference to a thing I’ve actually thought about many times. Something along the line of “a name of a geographic location isn’t the same as the actual location”, and it hit me “Me and Mikael are just f-n locator tags of a bunch of processes in my form!” I saw before me on a computer screen how we are all organisms running around as part of life (we were all represented by small dots with tags hanging by the dots’ side), being referred to as being our labels.
And also some anger and disappointment: “WTF! I invested all this time, worry and energy in maintaining a fucking (pardon my French) label!?”.

5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen? Give examples from your experience.

No, I don’t.
It is a constant flow of life. In this life there is a lot of stimuli and response. Our bodies respond to stimuli and conditions by sheer force of life. The choices/control are illusions created after the fact in thought (which by the way is a behavior that exists under the same rules, i.e. causes give rise to an effect).
I want to say stimulus – response, and this is really a part of the learning and the way action arises. But I believe it is a simplification. Therefore I now think it is more appropriate to speak of conditions (a way of reasoning I always thought was a bit “airy fairy” before). When the conditions are right the appropriate action, organism, expression of life arises.

6) Anything to add?

It really is so goddam simple. And I realize now that the reiteration of the same theme, which I then took as lack of flexibility, probably is just because it’s hard to explain how to simplify, when there still is such a hard drive to make things complicated.
The reiteration somehow finally gave cause to the relaxation that made all the reasoning and the trying to force it stop.

BTW, I am using 'I' and 'thinking', etc in this description 'aware' of what they point to :)
I am ready for follow-up questions.

[Andrew White]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your responses, I enjoyed reading them. I'll ask some other guides to look in and let you know if they come up with any questions.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[Andrew White]

Hi Mike,

The process has been confirmed. I'll send you a PM.

Take care,

Andrew

[Zinfandel]

Hi Andrew!
Thank you very much for your time and effort. i am very greatful!
Wait a sec, who is grateful again? ;)