Good day Marcus, i like your words and your tone/attitude.
Thanks :) Brace yourself, some words to chew through here.
1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?
Was there ever?
Simply, I do not know.
It seems like the ‘self’ was all a dream but I’m still sleepy.
Waking up from this has involved countless realisations.
There are deeper recognitions of one shared being expressing happening.
However, when I wake up in the morning there is often a heavy sense of ‘me’.
Like I have to do ‘Marcus’ again in this coming day.
It doesn’t feel that enticing sometimes. Like a bit of a slog.
Some seriousness, mild sadness and heaviness might arise, some confusion and fear also - Marcus trudging through life.
The reality is different, in the moment there is often joy and delight and a whole range of experience, but the thought of ‘Marcus-ing’ can feel burdensome.
To address the question, time and time again, I recognise that the things that get associated to this activity or thought of being Marcus fall away or are seen through and thus it seems like it’s all one big fiction.
There is a dimension of simplicity - hereness and this-ness that is being known through returning to what is here only.
There’s a transparency and unity that is here but I cannot say it is fully established.
I cannot know if there ever was a self, as I don’t know how creation works, former teachers have given me models of creation including comprehensive models about how creation separates through the subtle energetics, it’s all very convincing and sounds true but I cannot know.
2) Share your own words, what the illusion of a separate self is and how it shows up in experience. Also, through your inquiry, what is different now?
The illusion of the separate self is a habitual and probably learned mechanism of the mind that creates an apparent separation from life.
When we interpret experience through the lens of being a ‘somebody’ or a ‘separate agent’ there is a tendency to assume ownership and agency over life and impose illusory limits, ideas, beliefs, worldviews, agendas upon it.
The separate self can give rise to many ’things’ that cloud direct intimacy and enjoyment of life.
It can create lots of suffering as it tends positions itself in opposition or conflict to life.
It ‘dwells’ and feeds in the resistance of what is, somehow avoiding intimacy with the purity of existence itself.
Therefore until it is seen through there will naturally be a hidden longing to ‘merge’ or re-unite’, which gives rise to seeking.
I have been exploring this contemplation for years but this exploration with LU has provided deepening and understanding of the mechanisms inherent in separation.
What is different now is less seeking, more accepting.
I feel like there is a place for all things, including psychological stuff, it’s simply all embraced.
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.
To see this it feels sobering in some way. The magnificence of ideas and philosophies and peak experiences and dreams about my potential greatness seem less ‘divine’ and reality is much more normal. It’s a bit like coming off a drug, the drug of reaching for perfection and holiness. There is only what is here and everything else doesn’t really matter that much or doesn’t have that much value. When I first read Ilona’s book and had my first video call I felt a massive liberation from having to be ‘Marcus’. It was a primal scream of relief, overwhelming joy that it was all over. Lol.
The last few exchanges in this thread, it feels like I’m doing the ‘work’ - meeting my resistance and addiction to thinking and really challenging myself to test my assumptions about what is happening right now.
The breakthroughs here seem to be like a deeper commitment to the process of letting go and being nourished only by what is here, rather than through pride or vanity or my dreams about myself or the thinking and philosophising. My sense is that this body-mind has been cleaning up over these last years but there’s more to be cleaned up, more releasing control, less reliance on thinking, deeper opening to expression and spontaneity.
4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, that made you look?
I feel like there may be some hanging on still happening, but I cannot speak of what did what? I’d just be guessing, seems too simplistic to make comment. On a bodily level there was deep holding held in my abdominal muscles that was released with deep massage and gave rise to the dream of falling through infinity. The holding container of LU has provided a sense of understanding and safety and sense of okayenss to allow the fall to happen. The teachings we've encountered here around direct experiencing and the mechanics of conceptualisation have been very helpful and challenged me to go a little further so to speak.
5) a) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work?
Give examples from your own recent experiences to how things happen and how things work.
Haha, I feel lots of excitement rise up. It might be that free will itself is illusionary. I feel a little hesitant to check. If we take it right back, maybe choices just happen and the thought/feeling based commentary itself might give the sense that choices are being made. It might be that a choice rises up in thought and we follow it or we don’t, but who is following it? Who is choosing?
I went to a relating circle yesterday and a dance event at 3:30 in the afternoon. It was 3:20 and I still hadn’t left. My body was feeling tired. I found myself walking to the event even though I had very convincing thoughts arising that I shouldn’t, but something kept me walking. It was as if that trauma response to protect myself and not be seen was being ‘walked through’. But who is that happening to? And to what degree is agency present. Thoughts certainly give a sense that ‘I’m choosing courage’, I’m being brave, but when I contemplate that, it seems quite silly or childish to assume that given the utter immensity of life and the way it has converged in that moment. It sounds too simplistic.
Control happens and it seems to happen to a separate somebody that wants to hold on to limitations and believed certainties etc. But who is it happening to? It’s more thoughts in a way giving rise to the experience of having a blurry window. Thoughts or positions that get locked up in the body that create ‘control’ but actually just needlessly create suffering.
Honestly this enquiry feels like a stretch to me this morning.
To boil it down simply - when the thoughts are stripped back that commentate on experience, how could we ever know what was giving rise to choice, will and intention. It seems utterly childish to assume that we can commentate on experience in this way, making assumptions that those choices are ‘ours’. lol
b) What are you responsible for? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how this works.
I resonate with the idea that when one is operating from the model of separation responsibility applies as it fits that experience/worldview. As one drops into a deeper trust and harmony with life, responsibility can be seen as more of an imaginative concept. Basically my belief is that ‘responsible’ virtues are inherent and speak to life in its natural expression, care, love, peace, courage, mercy, justice etc. Of course there is a spectrum here and responsibility should not be discarded once there is seeing, but gradually known as yet another mirage.
6) Anything to add?
Thank you <3
Love
Marcus
