Picture your guide making a happy, happy dance!
And you can imagine me joining the dance, too! :)
Can you please answer the questions below? That will tell me if we still need to look at something.
Glad to answer them as always.
1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
No, there isn't and there never was. 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. The "agent self" I have talked about earlier is a form of I-labeled thoughts that grabs an action within the flow of life, assigning a self to the action before or after the action, but it is not reality either.
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.
From what I have seen looking at the reality, the fictional self is a bundle of passing thoughts, memories and projections to future or past that dwells within the realm of thoughts. This realm of thoughts creates and superimposes a kind of reality matrix on actual reality and the interaction between the illusionary self and this fictional reality create a very convincing feeling of a separate self, but it is only thought fiction and therefore just can not stand the test of actual reality being observed. This separate self pulls towards and pushes away aspects of reality and creates a division in the mind between subject and object. It is also very convincing because it can create emotional reactions and content, making itself
SEEM very real because it can be felt within the body.
The illusion of separate self might decide or remember from the past that it likes apples and it is hungry so it wants to go to the kitchen to pick up an apple and it attributes this all to a me that is hungry, likes apples and went to pick an apple from the kitchen when in actual reality there was only a flow of life within awareness - the picking up of an apple, the eating of it and so on without a subject or an object. This illusion moves with awareness where awareness goes and when in reality there is awareness of movement in a finger, the illusion of a self places quickly an "I decided to move my finger"-label to the action to maintain the illusion of a separate entity being in control of the activity, even though at the same time this thought self was completely unaware of other movement happening in the body.
Culture and human interaction is so strongly based on thought content that it necessarily gives birth to this illusion: we are taught from a kid that we have a name, we have preferences and dislikes over parts of reality and that we are separate agents that have to have a control over reality. It is easy to see how humans often behave in a way that can be best described as a "man versus nature" course of action, but the truth is that many parts of human culture, interaction, education and so in is in fact best described as man versus reality. As soon as we learn that we are separate entities from others, we have our names, our individual looks and tastes, this illusion of a self within the realm of thoughts starts to invade the realm of thoughts and to create a huge amount of buffers between the separate self and reality that work on to keep this illusion in place. Nothing is enough for it, it always wants more and more and more and to grow and reality seems to be its worst enemy.
The illusionary self is very skillful in keeping itself alive - fear seems to be its biggest weapon in keeping itself alive. There's the fear of dying, fear of going insane, fear of loosing control, fear of people not liking you and so on ad infinitum. These fears seem very necessary and in fact the fear itself might be real, but nothing behind it is real as it works on to protect an illusion.
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.
Well, like you said when we started - it's nothing one would expect it to be. It seems like a big cosmic joke, like really, THIS is it? But then again, it is intuitively so clear at the same time. In fact, I believe that I have "seen" it in a similar fashion some years back for a few weeks, but the illusionary self tricked itself very easily back into the picture by forcing a "it really can't be as simple as this, you know"-thought in my head somewhere. It had me convinced that there had to be the fireworks, angels, experiences of past lives, psychic abilities through the roof, astral visits and so on and if there weren't, then that's not it - there's still something more to experience to see through the illusion. The illusion of a self really thrived on "seeking", but once the "k" was removed from the verb, it just kind of had come out of hiding.
There is a lot of spaciousness in most of my feelings, actions and sensory experiences during the day. Everything seems to be in a flow and I can sit on my balcony, looking outside at the scenery and enjoying the beauty of it all without thinking that there's something I am not seeing in it. Seeing is seeing what it's seeing, no need to be more complicated then that.
The biggest difference is that there is really no need to seek anything spiritually. I might meditate but it's not to gain anything, it's just a relaxed way of looking at reality or experiencing reality. I could go and pick up a spiritual book and enjoy it's content but it's not to gain anything, just to read something pleasant that is very different from the compulsive need to read tens of books a month in order to understand what it's all about that has haunted me the last few years. I also feel that all the things that were said by different people and teachers in the spiritual field about oneness and nonduality that really have troubled me ("Oh boy, I can somehow conceptually understand this but what does this really mean?") now, for the first time, make sense to me.
This illusion of a self seems to oscillate back and forth - the illusionary reality matrix it has created is sometimes more present then at other times, but a gap is created to it as soon as awareness goes to something in the actual reality like sounds or seeing and so on. It is especially strong when someone else forces a me towards my "illusionary self" or towards the self that they attribute to "me". Like, for example, if someone would comment on why I did this or why I said that, it just seems kind of strange to explain motivations , likes or dislikes of my "self" when I know there isn't one, but I guess that's just how it goes - everyone plays the self game and living with people, I have to participate in it even though the self-role seems more and more alien. But I don't mean to say that I would have a cynical attitude towards people haunted by this game, on the contrary, now more than ever I feel very strong compassion towards everyone around me and can tune in with love in my interactions between people.
4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?
It was a string of events, but it really started with you asking me to look and not look with my thoughts. That's the first time I think I understood what can be described as a flow of life happening without an agent, like what I means to just look and not look with thinking. On the same day, discussing with my girlfriend about my depression, she made the point the maybe I am not depressed but rather just I have some kind of a mild attention deficit. That seemed to make sense and when I looked at it with just looking and not looking with thoughts, what I saw was not attention deficit but an illusionary self that makes a way into reality and disrupts the flow of life by forcing a suffering agent on things happening on their own accord.
5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen? Give examples from your experience.
Well, in thoughts this does happen, but in reality no. This morning, "I" decided to make a list that I need to work on a translation, go jogging, play bass and rehearse a play today. These things have taken place today, but "I" have not done any of them. There has been translation happening, there has been jogging, playing bass and rehearsing the play script but there is no agent there. The thought in the morning did not make this happen, they happened because the action or flow happened.
6) Anything to add?
Just something concerning what you wrote earlier in your message:
Good to know but the truth - and i'm talking from experience - is that there is no way to know how this seeing will keep unfolding. It's possible that you will see changes happening that you never expected!
After reading this, a strong illusion of "self needing to seek" kind of rose from the bushes - what happened was that because what has changed so far during the last few days is so little, like actually nothing has changed, but then almost everything has changed. This "seeking self" tried to convince "me" that because there has not been big changes yet, maybe this isn't it and maybe there is still more illusion of self to see. I just looked at reality as a reaction to this and, seeing no self anywhere as expected, the feeling disappeared, but it was a funny experience - a self trying to convince nobody that there might still be a self somewhere that has not been seen. Do you think this is a reason to look more or are residual self-thoughts like to be expected and to be dealt with by looking at reality, as I did?