Who else is ready to look?

[Brant]

Ok, I'm back and recharged ready for another push to the finish line.

[Ilona]

Great. So what comes up now when you focus on this thought-

There is no separate entity 'me' at all in real life, as in zero.

[Brant]

Firstly I've noticed that there is a seamless transition between reality and immersion of thought. When I search for the separate entity of 'me' I can cut into thought without really being consciously aware.

The idea of 'me' points to thoughts which point to reality. Me points to body, brain, thoughts, past experiences and it's mistaken for reality since the body, brain and thoughts are real.

Then there's confusion since all these things are supposedly owned by 'me': my body, my brain, my thoughts, my past experiences.

Now my thoughts take me back 10 steps... I'm my body, brain thoughts etc - that is me. It's a convenient label to describe this entity and how it interacts with the world.

If there is no me then... .... the mind draws a blank, I go present, the world seems to operate fine without a me in the equation.

What is Santa Claus? Santa has a body and past experiences. He remains clearly a thought and a thing of fiction since, well, I am not him. That's the only way I can know him for sure is by being him... if he was standing here I could see a human dressed as Santa but I know nothing about him for sure.It would all be thought/imagination.

What is me? There are thoughts of body and past experiences. However there is a difference between 'me' and santa. Or so I believe. The difference is...... awareness. There seems to be separation between awareness and thought. On one side I have Santa and Brant as thought... but where is the difference between Brant, Santa and this awareness? And where does this awareness connect to Brant to make it the one entity? I go present again and my questions go unanswered.

[Ilona]

ok, good, thank you for your answer. let's look deeper.

There seems to be separation between awareness and thought.

explain that. what is the difference? how does it work.

Santa has a body and past experiences.

really? how about fairies, unicorns, batman and the rest? they all have bodies? how?? it's a fantasy world you are talking about. and 'me' is on the same shelf with above. but you need to see it to get it. so keep looking. separate real from imaginary. real as in things that do not disappear if you stop imagining them and unreal- characters and places that live in an imaginary world.
real are senses, and feelings, thoughts, what is now.

[Brant]

Santa has a body and past experiences.

really? how about fairies, unicorns, batman and the rest? they all have bodies? how?? it's a fantasy world you are talking about. and 'me' is on the same shelf with above. but you need to see it to get it. so keep looking. separate real from imaginary. real as in things that do not disappear if you stop imagining them and unreal- characters and places that live in an imaginary world.
real are senses, and feelings, thoughts, what is now.

Yes you're right - I meant to say he has a body in my imagination, but the way I wrote it is just confusing.

There seems to be separation between awareness and thought.

explain that. what is the difference? how does it work.

As I sat here I drifted between thoughts and reality. One minute I'm lost in thought with two characters interacting (me and my brother) but it's clear these two characters are thought - memory mixed with imagination. Like you said, as soon as I stop thinking they disappear. One character does not have a pointer to 'me' (my brother) but the other one does (Brant). It doesn't make sense to have a bundle of thoughts be a 'me' - why Brant be me and not batman riding a unicorn be me? They are both in the same category. As it is, bundle Brant has a big neon sign that says 'this is you'.

With further thought... the neon sign points to a me which is also thought. Funny how I missed that... thought pointing to thought pointing to thought but no apparent connection to reality.

[Brant]

explain that. what is the difference? how does it work

I realised I didn't really answer the question. Thought comes and goes. It sneaks up and occupies the foreground and reality fades into the background and becomes largely ignored. Once there is awareness that thought is in the foreground attention can be put back on to reality and thought can take a back seat. It's like reality is always there playing, but the brain covers it up with a slide show presentation of ideas...

Thought is memory mixed with imagination - it's not real and vanishes when you change awareness to the present or away from thought.

[Ilona]

nice.
Now look at thought feeling connection, how does this work, how is loop created, look as a mechanism, program.

but i'd say that thought is real, only content does not necessarily point to real. they also point to unreal. the difference is in knowing what is what. then position of 'me' is seen clearly.

[Brant]

It seems the only thoughts which create feelings are those that have association to 'me'. A thought of a house I have never visited and randomly thought up generates no feeling, but it seems as soon as there is relationship to I (perhaps I'm inserted into this thought) there is feeling.

It's actually really hard to produce thoughts and see which ones generate feeling. Though, right now there is a thought that says 'you will never get this' which generates a bad feeling. Then I suppose there is the feeling that there is a 'me' thinking that thought.

Is this the loop? An assumption that there is a thinker to the thought.

[Brant]

I think I need to spend some time working out what is real like you said. I'll post again when I have something of value to say.

[Ilona]

The vicious loop of thinking is made up of thoughts and feelings that feed each other. thought is charged with emotional energy, that brings feeling up and that feeling gets strengthened by next thought and charges feelings. what holds this movement trapped in circle is identification.

this time examine properly the assumption that there is a thinker. so is there a thinker?