The Gate

Hi Bella,

Right - I don't think my questions have concrete answers, it's sort of like they're doubts that will go away with time, but it's hard to put in words.

Without a doer, how does brushing teeth happen?

I would say that one can have a perspective of there being a doer/a decider, it doesn't feel so important to get rid of it either, just to know that none of it has any reality other than being thoughts, and none of that is "me." It seems just as wrong to try to make the sense of self go away as it does to make it appear.

Without a decider, how do you know which clothes to put on in the morning?

There is a process going on that leads to decisions being made, to clothes being put on, but there's no "I" deciding. I don't need to make a self, and it can still happen. This leaves me confused and wanting to reconcile it in logical terms, but that is another identification with thoughts. Not-making a self doesn't answer the questions, but there's no self to care about the answers either.

I just had a brief moment where I felt a sense of frustration or impatience - which I've often felt in doing this work - wanting to be done already, have some big realization. But then that went away. I don't need anything else. Seeing this in terms of good experience or bad experience, success or failure would all be more thoughts.

Eric

Hi Eric,

You’re really lOOking well. It’s all about thoughts.
About the ‘big realisation‘: that is an expectation. My experience is that things are always different than I had expected.

Just wanted to ask you how you are today. How is it going?

If you have any questions for me, please ask them.

Bella

Hi Bella,

Thanks for your reply, yes that makes sense about experience and I can definitely agree.

I think my only questions are where are we in the process that we began at the start of this thread? And what's next?

Thanks :)

Eric

Hi Eric,

I think my only questions are where are we in the process that we began at the start of this thread? And what's next?

You had clear shift in perception. Which indicates at least you have come a long way. Now we need to do some checking. That’s why I want to hear a bit more from what is happening with you right now. How are you emotionally after that shift? Are you confident yourself that you saw through the illusion of the separate self?

There are other areas to look into. Let me know what you think.

Bella

Hi Bella,

Within the same two or three day span of having that realization last week, I also had a series of earth-shattering breakthroughs in other areas of my life, the result of which is that I generally feel less fear, more stability, and like so many things that were problems I couldn't resolve are either no longer problems, have resolutions, or I'm not so worried about them. I can't say what is responsible for what but I believe that the work I've been doing here and that other work certainly influenced each other. If more information about that would be helpful to this process, I'd be happy to provide it.

Emotionally I feel a calm that is not the result of having overcome anything. It's like finding a relaxation that was already there, I'm less shaken by things, and this is not me having to do anything - it's automatic and doesn't require effort. So much energy that was blocked is now freed up. An example: in the past whenever I cooked I would put on a podcast or something to listen to, it felt necessary to have that distraction there. The last week I've found myself many times just cooking without even thinking about doing this, and if I do remember I often think "meh, I don't need that" and I find a certain uncontrived, unhurried peace in just being present.

I am 100% confident I saw through the illusion of a separate self. Now the desires I have are about getting back there or maintaining that awareness, and these desires come up with so much more calmness than when I've said that in the past. There is a want to achieve but it's quite diminished.

That sounds great if there are other areas to investigate. If you think I'm ready then let's do it.

Eric

Hi Eric,

I am 100% confident I saw through the illusion of a separate self.

Wonderful.

Can you answer the following questions with some detail please, and answer what's true for you rather than any sort of 'ideal' answer. Also please provide examples where asked.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? 
Was there ever? 

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. 

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. 

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over; made you look? 

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.

b) What are you responsible for? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how this works.

6) Anything to add?

Bella

Hi Bella,

Answers below.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?
Was there ever?

The separate self does not exist now and it never has. What may or may not exist are thoughts that may or may not identify as a self, but do not hold any weight beyond being thoughts. What I note with this question is that while I am saying that there is no real self, I also don't feel a strong compulsion to disprove it. The question of whether this thing really exists or not does not feel of great importance to me

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.

Right now as I am looking at this, I can see that there are thoughts that believe they are an individual self and awareness can identify with them, and that identification causes more signs of identification - emotions, thoughts, beliefs, etc. I don't know if I can say when it starts in a more universal sense, because when not identifying with self, ideas of beginning and end don't really fit. It just happens, or maybe it doesn't, I guess it doesn't matter. And being aware of this doesn't make these signs stop arising - for example I can see them as "thought that thinks about the self" "recognition of desire to move" etc. but not buy into it.

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.

It feels like no big deal. Or that it would be hard for me to make a big deal of it all. Between now and when I started this dialogue there are some things that are different and some that are the same. In a way nothing is different, nothing has actually changed. And then it's impossible to say that there wasn't a change too, so I'd say there is a deeper understanding of what was always true. From the past few days I've felt much less contracted around problems, less tense about resolution. I've even had some difficult days and negative emotions, but I don't have such strong reactions about the negativity of those emotions. These things don't reach as deep as they did before. The previous sense of "normalcy" was full of tension and anxiety and now it's the same feeling of "normal" but so much of that tension and anxiety is gone.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over; made you look?

Sitting a few days without an answer to the question of "what decides for me?", and in a flash realizing that gravity happens all the time, I know I'm not causing it, and I've never felt anxious about not finding a unifying force behind it, and the same goes for all the thoughts, emotions, etc. that pass through my experience. The thought of "what causes all this" felt so inapplicable to experience that it was laughable.

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.

Decision, intention, free well, choice, and control are all thoughts. Things happening is a thought. Cause and effect is a thought. The need to know this is a thought. Even if I could explain these things or prove they existed, who would I be trying to prove them to?? I'm not trying to sound flippant or clever here - these questions were prviously tremendously important to me so I'm finding a kind of happy lightness in the space that they used to take up

b) What are you responsible for? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how this works.

There is actually a massive sense of relief, an unburdening. Creating a self creates so many responsibilities - defending it, perpetuating it, even disparaging it - all of that is unnecessary, it doesn't have to happen and the world still goes on. It's like I was walking around holding bags of rocks and I realized that the rocks were not me, I could just let them go.

6) Anything to add?

A funny observation - seeing the terms "separate self", "separately entity" first felt odd to me because I have historically come across those words in discussions of feeling "one" with everything, but I feel not-separate/not-one. Also going through these questions made me much more aware of how much lighter I have felt lately, I guess I needed something to draw my attention to this as it just felt so normal and I didn't notice.

-Eric

Hi Eric,

Thank you for your responses. I am going to get other guides to have a look at the thread for checking. This may take a day or two. Sometimes, not always, the other guides may have further questions which I will bring to you.

If there are no further questions, I will let you know and you will then be invited to the LU FB groups.

Bella

Great, thank you!

Hi Eric,

As you can see, your thread is already transferred to the archives section. The guides have no further questions for you. It has been a pleasure to explore the concept of the separate self with you and point the way. 

Keep an eye out for an email notification notifying you of a PM (private message) from the forum inviting you to join our aftercare groups on Facebook. If you don't receive an email notification, you can access your PM's from the forum once you have logged in. The PM also details other resources available to you. Your username has changed from green to blue which indicates that you have had the realisation of there being no separate self. Also, this thread is now moved to the Archive section of the forum.

You can contact me at any time if you have any questions etc, via the forums PM system, or via Facebook if you decide to join our groups there.

Bella

I also send you a PM. Look in the upper right of the screen, above the search option.