Hello Daniel,
I finally can sit and answer your questions. This might be a long one.
Here we go.
1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
No. There are no entities and never was. Life exists, and it´s not apart from us. It is us in every moment.
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.
There is the illusion of the separate self from the moment there´s a relation with thoughts, emotions and feelings. A person starts to think that he/she is those emotions, or thoughts, or body, identifying to it. So, someone may look in the mirror and think that the image they see in the mirror is them (in a good or a bad way); or may have an idea at work (again, good or bad), and believe that it´s them , defining them every moment.
I realized that there is nothing separate, and actually, there is no self. I´ll explain from recent events in my life. I got food poisoned saturday evening. At sunday I was very sick. Monday I went to the hospital, today i´m better.
IF there was the illusion of the separate self, I would get mad for being sick, would blame anything or anyone for it. There would be anger, sadness towards me, fault, blaming, etc.
What actually happened was none of this thoughts. The only thing that appeared was "body in pain","weakness", "sick","fever", without any attachments to it. Off course there was the fear that my wife would get it to and hurt the baby, but it was just "fear", and went away very quickly. This was all life happening.
There was also no moaning, no complaining, nothing. There was silence and living. And a certain feeling of knowing that i´d pass.
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.
I used the words peace and silence a lot thru our talks, but I think that the best one is freedom.
Before I started I knew that I´ve reached a place very near to realizing all this, but I still had a illusionary/romantic view to it, and kept searching at books, videos and so. There was always an anxiety feel to it.
Since I started this dialogue I realized that there is no need to look elsewhere and there is no book, video, person that can show me how things are, I have to experience by myself. To put the books away, the videos, even the practices that I´ve been doing for a long time, and simply be present, aware was that changed it all.
I had pretty bad days since I started this talk from work and from health (which is rare), as If I was being tested or something, and It was great to actually live these moments and not be attached to the idea of suffering, of victim, or anything like that. I was feeling very traquil to the whole process and this was great, very different from how I´d react before.
4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?
Actually, there wasn´t just one, it was a gradual process of fully understanding, I´ll quote some of the eye openers questions here:
What we're doing here has nothing to do with being in a feeling good state at all times. You are aware of that right?
In your direct experience, is there anything permanent right now?
The reason I'm being so fussy about this is that ultimately, no teaching is absolutely true. For any, you have to take some and leave some. Why? Because they are using words, labels and what we are talking about cannot be explained. Just try to define 'life' and you'll see what I mean. You'll never end up with a definition that captures everything of what life really is. And I'm not talking about biological life, but this life, the one you are experiencing now.
And the second experiment was a game changers. I really liked that one.
All of these remarcks helped me loose, one by one, the impressions that I had about what were things and how they should be.
5) Describe decision, intention, free Will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.
There´s always a good question! Decision, intention, free Will, choice and control are actions, are manifestations of life. What makes this things happend? Life itself.
How does it work: by the moment you start to live life fully present, life will generate this actions to that things happends. For instance, I went for a dinner saturday night, ate a very good meal that problably was not that good, I got sick, I rested, I am better now... each one of theses phases involved a decision, an intention, free will, choice and control, but neither were actually mine, I am just living life. And I could not fight or go against these happenings, that would lead to suffering, frutration because I would not be surrendering myself to it. To fully experience life, present or awareness, there´s got the be an acceptance of it all. When you accept you become integrated to life. You live fully.
6) Anything to add?
I´m really happy to have started this thread and have Daniel as a guide. I cannot put in words how much it helped me and how fast it was. LU is really something, and I am really thankfull to live this experience.
Cheers!
Andy