It was exciting to discover that thinking made its own decisions, or perhaps simply responded to what occurred. I get apprehensive feelings: opening the door to chaos, randomness, letting go, laziness, drifting, those sort of thoughts. Also freedom, living in present, go with the flow, nothing to decide. Of course there never was anything else, I only thought there was.
The auto-producing / self-registering aspect of experience may also be getting more clear and noticed. And I am trying reminding myself that this is so, that there is no me to control, protect or benefit.
Otherwise I just carry on as I always did.
Request for a Guide
Re: Request for a Guide
It is seeing clearly after thinking - that there was no I thinking but just thinking, a key practice for me for some time, that seems important now too.
Re: Request for a Guide
It is great that you have realised that there is only thought, There is no I in the centre.It was exciting to discover that thinking made its own decisions, or perhaps simply responded to what occurred. I get apprehensive feelings: opening the door to chaos, randomness, letting go, laziness, drifting, those sort of thoughts. Also freedom, living in present, go with the flow, nothing to decide. Of course there never was anything else, I only thought there was.
Lets take the next steps,
How do you feel now you are aware that there is no I in the centre of you,
Does this bring with it any anxiety or fear
Love and light Nina
Re: Request for a Guide
No, I feel just the same. I don't live in constant certainty that there is no Me at the centre.
(Not sure how much chance to reply from now until end of holiday on 15th)
(Not sure how much chance to reply from now until end of holiday on 15th)
Re: Request for a Guide
No internet last week - a real holiday!
A relaxing week, with time to reflect, which may continue some deepening understanding perhaps. Otherwise here I am again, awaiting instructions.
A relaxing week, with time to reflect, which may continue some deepening understanding perhaps. Otherwise here I am again, awaiting instructions.
Re: Request for a Guide
Still continuing as I said, as I will until I hear again from you.
Re: Request for a Guide
I am very sorry have been on vacation and have just reviewed your posts i think you are ready for the final questions. When you have completed them the other guides may have some further questions to ask.
Sorry for the delay.
Love and light Nina
Sorry for the delay.
Love and light Nina
Re: Request for a Guide
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.
6) Anything to add?
Lastly what was the final thing that took you through the gate.
When you have finished your questions i will ask the other guides for any comments
Thank you again very sorry for the delay
Love and light Nina
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.
6) Anything to add?
Lastly what was the final thing that took you through the gate.
When you have finished your questions i will ask the other guides for any comments
Thank you again very sorry for the delay
Love and light Nina
Re: Request for a Guide
I don't find an entity of "me" separate from my experience. But when I act in the world, I act from an idea of being a separate body, with currently separate thoughts, a separate wardrobe, toothbrush, and a personal agenda for happiness. Is that last idea the main problem? The rest comes down to individual experience, and judging it. Compared to what, I wonder!
Re: Request for a Guide
Just look at each individual question and fin the answer from direct experience then you will find out if you have gone through the gate.
when you have completed all the questions they will be reviewed and the other guides may ask for further clarification
Love and light Nina
when you have completed all the questions they will be reviewed and the other guides may ask for further clarification
Love and light Nina
Re: Request for a Guide
1) there is not a separate entity, not separate from thoughts, even though in much of my habitual thinking there is, so that habit keeps winning. I don't have a way of thinking about things without a self-idea, and when I see the absence of self that does not give me a way.
Interesting to note that there never was such a self.
2) The illusion occurs when thinking happens, saying it is related to other sense data, and this thinking is based on the assumption that there is an entity which is the sum of (apparently continuing) experience and is separate from all that experience (including the present sensory experience). It even makes this assumption when thinking that thinking has just happened - it assumes that there was an entity "doing" that thinking, who is now remembering it. This ignores the fact that at any time experience or thinking is actually happening, there is no evidence of such a separate entity - it is an after-the-event rationalisation. It would be harder to express this without the assumption of a stream of time, although there is similarly no evidence of that.
(How do you see it, is thinking really related to sensory information? I only know it is because thinking tells me it is?)
So the illusion doesn't actually start, it is like a "twist" in how thinking occurs, but since thinking is not a findable separate thing, then neither is a twist in it.
Since time is another twist, trying to work out when one twist occurred in the view of another one... could be a waste of - apparent - time!
The illusion of self works by viewing experience in terms of things and events - in other words by 'living in thinking'. Assuming that knowing something is having a way of thinking about it. Tricky this, since it seems to my thinking that we all need a way of thinking about life and interpreting our experience -but we need to realise this is not actual experiential truth, and be able to act from that realisation.
I think I am a self, and I trust that way of seeing, it's the devil that I know. And yet since there is no such self, I should trust that fact, because that is what has actually been the case - and I would feel even more trusting if I realised I had no self to protect.
3) My thinking has not changed overall, merely added a thought which contradicts all my other thinking. So that new thought ("there is no Me") has little effect apparently. I have had some lighter moments during this conversation period, when I discovered the lack of a findable self, but now things seem much as they were before.
4) What I had not noticed before was that decisions come from thinking, without there being a Me to choose. It is because thinking has this idea of Me that it credits me with doing the deciding as well as the thinking. I don't think I have changed otherwise, I was looking for self before, and I have not dispensed with the idea of self in my thinking, hardy even devalued it yet.
I would like to do that, though. How do you suggest I move on from here?
5) So the thinking which cycles around proliferating itself is what "decides" or controls the fates of this apparently continuing unit of body/mind/experience. Reactions are habitual or extensions of patterns of thinking already present. Yet there is a strand there which sees the suffering created by mistaken thinking, in myself and others, and feels regret for it, and there is thinking with intention to redirect the overall thinking to correct this mistake.
Thank you for your help so far, Nina, would you really like to pass these answers on to another guide now?
Interesting to note that there never was such a self.
2) The illusion occurs when thinking happens, saying it is related to other sense data, and this thinking is based on the assumption that there is an entity which is the sum of (apparently continuing) experience and is separate from all that experience (including the present sensory experience). It even makes this assumption when thinking that thinking has just happened - it assumes that there was an entity "doing" that thinking, who is now remembering it. This ignores the fact that at any time experience or thinking is actually happening, there is no evidence of such a separate entity - it is an after-the-event rationalisation. It would be harder to express this without the assumption of a stream of time, although there is similarly no evidence of that.
(How do you see it, is thinking really related to sensory information? I only know it is because thinking tells me it is?)
So the illusion doesn't actually start, it is like a "twist" in how thinking occurs, but since thinking is not a findable separate thing, then neither is a twist in it.
Since time is another twist, trying to work out when one twist occurred in the view of another one... could be a waste of - apparent - time!
The illusion of self works by viewing experience in terms of things and events - in other words by 'living in thinking'. Assuming that knowing something is having a way of thinking about it. Tricky this, since it seems to my thinking that we all need a way of thinking about life and interpreting our experience -but we need to realise this is not actual experiential truth, and be able to act from that realisation.
I think I am a self, and I trust that way of seeing, it's the devil that I know. And yet since there is no such self, I should trust that fact, because that is what has actually been the case - and I would feel even more trusting if I realised I had no self to protect.
3) My thinking has not changed overall, merely added a thought which contradicts all my other thinking. So that new thought ("there is no Me") has little effect apparently. I have had some lighter moments during this conversation period, when I discovered the lack of a findable self, but now things seem much as they were before.
4) What I had not noticed before was that decisions come from thinking, without there being a Me to choose. It is because thinking has this idea of Me that it credits me with doing the deciding as well as the thinking. I don't think I have changed otherwise, I was looking for self before, and I have not dispensed with the idea of self in my thinking, hardy even devalued it yet.
I would like to do that, though. How do you suggest I move on from here?
5) So the thinking which cycles around proliferating itself is what "decides" or controls the fates of this apparently continuing unit of body/mind/experience. Reactions are habitual or extensions of patterns of thinking already present. Yet there is a strand there which sees the suffering created by mistaken thinking, in myself and others, and feels regret for it, and there is thinking with intention to redirect the overall thinking to correct this mistake.
Thank you for your help so far, Nina, would you really like to pass these answers on to another guide now?
Re: Request for a Guide
No problem I will ask the other guides for comments and Questions and get back to you as soon as i get a response
Love and Light
Nina
Love and Light
Nina
Re: Request for a Guide
Thank you again sorry for the delay have had ongoing problems with my computer
Q1 Needs some further work "I don't find an entity of "me" separate from my experience."Consider this question again look at the worl in the liberation documents then consider this question from direct experience.
Q2 is fine
Q3 From direct experience "How does it *feel* to see this?" NOT how do you Think about seeing this, which is what he answered. Please demonstrate the difference between direct experience and thinking.
Q4 Look at question 4 again take a walk and see what comes to you.
"I have not dispensed with the idea of self in my thinking" — please address this!
Q5 is completely unanswered.
You are doing well but need to look at the questions again and see what your thoughts are
Well done
Love and light Nina
Q1 Needs some further work "I don't find an entity of "me" separate from my experience."Consider this question again look at the worl in the liberation documents then consider this question from direct experience.
Q2 is fine
Q3 From direct experience "How does it *feel* to see this?" NOT how do you Think about seeing this, which is what he answered. Please demonstrate the difference between direct experience and thinking.
Q4 Look at question 4 again take a walk and see what comes to you.
"I have not dispensed with the idea of self in my thinking" — please address this!
Q5 is completely unanswered.
You are doing well but need to look at the questions again and see what your thoughts are
Well done
Love and light Nina
Re: Request for a Guide
Thank you, I am looking again at the areas you suggest, firstly around choice and control.
Surely all I can do to address the habit of thinking in terms of "me" is to practise remembering it is not like that? I wonder if I have not seen it clearly enough yet?
I don't FEEL any different in general from before this dialogue, which would suggest I haven't got clarity yet.
Surely all I can do to address the habit of thinking in terms of "me" is to practise remembering it is not like that? I wonder if I have not seen it clearly enough yet?
I don't FEEL any different in general from before this dialogue, which would suggest I haven't got clarity yet.
Re: Request for a Guide
Watching my senses, they appear without a Me to know them, they can only appear if they are known.. but as soon as I do something or think about something, I am living in a thought-world, and that pays no attention to the realisation about my senses. What did it for you? How did you get over this point?
Funny how thought habits don't change easily. If you have a habitual thought like "I need to achieve to be liked", then even when you realise how silly that is, it doesn't go away. What will make my thinking change relating to self?
Funny how thought habits don't change easily. If you have a habitual thought like "I need to achieve to be liked", then even when you realise how silly that is, it doesn't go away. What will make my thinking change relating to self?
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