What is the "one" that can be cheated?Thoughts with an "I-label" or "I-content" do exist and are especially good at cheating one to believe in the existence of a separate self, but it is real only in thought realm and nowhere else.
In reality, there is no one to be cheated - it's just a part of the thought game. This "one" referred to here is actually the imaginary self, it is what believes it's own existence.In response to Q1 you said:
What is the "one" that can be cheated?
Again, in reality there is no-one to believe or not to believe in anything. That which believes or not believes is a bundle of thoughts with I-content within the realm of thoughts.What is the "one" that can believe or not believe in something?
To believe or not to believe is the pushing away and pulling towards parts of reality that is part of the functioning of the illusion of a separate self. This believing and not believing takes place in thought and therefore has no value in reality, because a belief has a subject and an object - someone who believes or does not belief. In reality, there is only looking and reality is what it is, there is no need to believe or not believe when looking is happening in reality.What exactly does it mean to believe or not believe?
What is this imaginary self?This "one" referred to here is actually the imaginary self, it is what believes it's own existence.
In experience, can you see thoughts believing or not believing?That which believes or not believes is a bundle of thoughts with I-content within the realm of thoughts.
Can believing or not believing be stopped if they are experienced?In reality, there is only looking and reality is what it is, there is no need to believe or not believe when looking is happening in reality.
Always happy to answer your questions! I think it might be a problem with language - it is sometimes hard to try and grasp at this flow of life, which by its nature is nondual, with language and concepts that are inherently dual and reductions of the experience. It would be easier to just write an instrumental song about it, but I'll keep that as my last weapon ;) If you feel that there might be more illusion here to weed out then I'm more than glad to do it and whatever is the case, it always seems to add clarity to write about these issues. Actually going through what I have written and your questions, I do agree that there is confusion in what I wrote the last time and the time before that.Hey Eerik!
Maybe it's a question of how language is being used but i see some things in your answers that we can look at, if you don't mind :)
Reading what I have written there, it is not true that an imaginary self would believe its own existence. This illusion of self is the adding of an I-content to a thought, emotion or experience and so on and attributing this "I" to an experiencing self. In reality, there is no self that could be an agent and therefore believe in its own existance. There might be a thought like "I feel this way", but the self that this "I" in the thought refers to is illusionary - in reality there is the experience of a thought but no self to experience this thought as separate from itself.What is this imaginary self?
How does an imaginary self believe in its own existence?
No, thoughts can not think, decide or do anything else and therefore they can not believe or not believe. There might be thought content concerning believing this or that, but this believing can not be attributed to other thoughts.In experience, can you see thoughts believing or not believing?
Can thoughts think?
Can thoughts decide?
Can thoughts do anything?
No they can not. If believing takes place in the flow, then there's no stopping it and the same goes for not believing. My sloppy wording there was again the use of the verb here, "to believe" in "there is no need to believe". It would have been better said that there is no-one to believe, but there is believing or, rather, seeing. This is really hard to explain, but what I was going after with when I said that there is no need to believe or not believe when one is looking at reality was not that believing would be under the control but that whether there is an illusion of a self separate self that is in control of believing. Like, in reality, there is only seeing and "seeing is believing". I know this logical way of approaching this issue won't grasp at it because there is no understanding but only seeing in reality, but I'll try to clarify what is said here: let's say for example that looking at reality, there is X and that means there is believing X and that's real. But what is not real is that there's is an "A who believes in X" and definately no "A who believes in X and has a chance to decide whether she believes Y and Z instead of X". This "A who believes X" can be seen not to be real and in that way the "believing" can be stopped but in reality, the act of believing can not be stopped. And actually it feels that there is no believing, there is looking at the reality and reality is what it is - there's no believing or not believing it because it can not be dissected, it's not dual but all one. It is the belief in the agent that can decide on belief that can be omitted and thus the dual nature of the act - a part of which is the belief in controlling the beliefs - can be gotten rid of.Can believing or not believing be stopped if they are experienced?
Absolutely not - thoughts will always be as they are, there is absolutely no control over them.Are you expecting that thoughts will become better, lighter, controlled, "upgraded" by the seeing of the illusion?
I'd be happy to! As I wrote above, it seems to be a bit hard to grasp at this seeing with language and concepts, but let's try!Can you please give more examples - from experience! - of the seeing?
Not what you think seeing is, what you see happening in experience now that the illusion has dropped.
It is just seeing flow happening wherever awareness is focused on - flow in physical processes like walking or writing and flow happening in thinking, talking and so on. Looking is just looking, effortless movement of awareness to different processes.How is looking at reality like?
Everything is in a flow. There's flow in the mind - in thoughts, feelings, emotions and projections and there's flow in physical experiences in the body - walking, writing, moving, sitting, eating and so on. Different processes flowing mentally, physically and psychologically and communicatively between people.What do you see?
In many ways it's not very different - maybe there's more awareness on what's happening on the outside instead of what's happening mentally and definately there seems to have been a shift towards awareness being more on physical doing than thinking about doing. It's difficult to grasp at without the use of a metaphor but the feeling is that before, life and experiences seemed like a difficult game with a suffering player who wanted to change the game whereas now it's like watching a movie with sympathy towards the characters, also the main character "Eerik" who really hated himself and the game before. Without the sense of a central self attributed to the main character "Eerik", the processes happening within awareness whether they are physical or mental are encompassed with something like spaciousness, lightness or emptiness. Sometimes the lightness gets a little buried under heavy "I-thoughts", but the story is interrupted as soon as awareness moves to looking at the reality and processes happening there - hearing, seeing, smelling, walking, thinking and feeling and so on. Like you said before, sometimes the "I-thought radio" is louder and sometimes more quiet but whatever the case, it's not seen to be in any way an acting agent in any way.How is life/experience being lived? What's different, if anything?
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