Hi John,
ray wrote:
One question remains. Where's the personality. It's still here but doesn't seem to have a discrete location. I'd have to look/move inward more to see it. I'm looking outward at the world mostly so far. What is your opinion/perception of the personality?
John Replied:
Have you got any easier ones? It's not something that occurs to me. Clearly, there's a conditioned "personality" that has become laid down in the brain, a mixture of beliefs and habits etc. Were someone to meet me now versus 6 months ago, they would have to be pretty intuitive to notice any differences outwardly.
Yes, as you suggest there's the whole nature/nurture thing with the personality. I'd say that parallels the trauma/damage aspect of the self. I would not ally the personality with beliefs, they are surely the domain of the self.
Today I was thinking that whereas before I had a self in the "middle" apparently driving the show, now I have my mind and body, with a "personality" seeming to be the perceiver/awareness of thoughts, ideas, decisions and choices as these things drift like clouds across the sky or break like waves upon the shore. The thoughts, ideas, decisions and choices are happening exactly as they always have, without "my" input. The change is that my controlling self has been supplanted by a perceiving personality. Surely that's just the next layer of onion skin in this game of hide and seek. (Sorry to mix my metaphors)
The question remains. Where is the personality? Can it be located? Is it real? I asked my self that question as I was driving on the M25 today. As I turned my attention inwards I got the message "Stop!". I guess that was the ego. It may be that that line of enquiry should not be pursued while driving or operating machinery.
And so to those questions. I had some thoughts earlier, but I wonder what I'll write. I'll try to be reasonably brief. This should be fun :-)
1) Is there a 'me', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever? how about self, is there anything that is separate from everything else?
There seemed to be a me, then there never was and now there seems to be one again. I'm now quite happy to label "me" as this mind, this body and this perceiving personality.
As the Zen folk say "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is."
There is no illusion of the idea of a separate self. Also there is no fairytale of the fantasy of a no-self.
This peronality has some characteristics of uniqueness, but I don't know if it is separate. It could just be ripples on the surface of the water.
2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works.
I can't decide whether it started before or after I learned language. It's built upon such things as unresolved conflict, so that this person has something to struggle against. This struggling and striving can only work if I see myself as separate. The separate self is reinforced by those around you when you are little, and bingo! Before long you are identified with this bundle of ideas that are labelled "me"
3) How does it feel to see this? describe in detail.
In a word, liberating. In any situation there is no longer the self to resist. That makes life easy, stress free and relaxing. Thoughts and decisions etc. are seen to drift by like clouds or break like waves on the shore, just as they always really did. Only now there is the (illusion of???) of personality perceiving them, before there was the illusion that the self directed them.
If one's body etc. is threatened the necessary protection or reaction takes place, but no new emotional pain or damage is laid down to strengthen the "self".
The phone rings, one deals with it just as before. Thinking happens, the mind is engaged just as before. Plans are made and when that activity ceases one return to a state of joyous peace, whereas before one probably stewed about "what if?" and "why didn't?".
The past. Hmmm. It only exists as a memory. It no longer causes pain in the present. I hadn't thought of that before. It's wonderful.
4) How would you describe it to somebody who has never heard about this illusion but is curious about it.
Recognize that objects that you own do not define you, that ideas about yourself do not define you and that the bundle of ideas about yourself that you label as "self" do not define you. Look within, see that this is true and "get over yourself". (I'd probably be quite that blunt)
The method employed here is as good a model as I can imagine. Ask that person to try and locate the self, reflect their queries back to them as questions so that their inner wisdom is engaged to see the truth.
You can tell someone about this until you are blue in the face. It is only they that can SEE it for themselves.
5) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look? was there a specific moment when seeing happened or was it gradual? what exactly happened?
In hindsight there were 3 distint phases, seeing, understanding and concrete awareness.
1. Seeing. I had acknowledged tha the next thing I needed to do was to look. I was driving on a dual carriageway on my way home when looking happened. I visualised a small disk, like a pebble or a paracetamol tablet in the centre of my brain. This disc was white and empty. It represented the space where the illusion of a separate self had been, at the centre of everything. This realization was no more dramatic than remembering where my house keys were. It simply was so.
About 1.5 days later.
2. Intellectualizing. Two days later I was pondering these things as I lay in bed and worked through the logic that I cannot define myself by an object nor by an idea. Further that the notion of self is just that, an idea. Also that because of that, the idea of no-self is also an idea. This reinforced my seeing.
About 1.5 days later.
3. Concrete awareness. Next evening I was really peckish and walking in the rain to get some fish and chips for supper. On the way to the fish and chip shop it settled and set. This was real, obvious and unmistakeable. No going back. I felt a concern that some folk who open to the awareness that the idea of a separate self is not real somehow miss the point that "no-self" also is not real. This could leave them in some "fairytale" state, which prevents further progress. I wonder if this happens?
With thanks and blessings,
Ray
