1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
There is no separate "self/I/me" entity anywhere at all in any shape or form. There never was. These words self, me, I are labels, pointing to nothing at all
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.
The illusion of self, seems to be a belief in an entity, that exists in this mind/body controlling things. A little thing, pulling and pushing levers, thinking thoughts, experiencing the world. It seems to start from a young age, when we are indoctrinated into believing that such a thing exists, people then refer to it, and entire language and thought systems are built upon this thing, inherent in every living thing, controlling everything. It becomes a base assumption that lies unquestioned.
The sense of self, seems to arise from a misperception of thoughts and/or sensations as I or me. With thought, like everything else, it simply arises, however there is a thought following it that says "I thought that" or "this is me". This next thought is believed and this belief obscures the obvious fact that this is just another thought, there is no need to posit a "me" or an "I".
There is also a sensation that arises in the body, when the body moves and when thoughts appear. This sensation is sometimes paired with thought and happens so quickly along with the thought/action, that they seem to arise together - so that it literally "feels like a self, doing things, or thinking thoughts". This sensation/thought is then used to reify the belief that "there is a me, a thing, an entity here controlling things, look, I just moved my hand, I just thought that thought". If scrutinized this is demonstrably false, at no time did any entity of any kind come by and start controlling things. However this belief is so ingrained that it seems intertwined with every perception. It simply takes looking at actual experience to see the unreality of the current belief.
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, unfettered. It feels freeing, to continually remember that there is no need to push and pull, to go somewhere or do something, to attain this or that, or add new belief systems or attain realisations or states of mind. The seeking component has completely died, there is no longer a desire or hunger to read or learn about new spiritual concepts.
4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?
The realisation that through all my years of reading up on no self, my diagrams and videos and voice notes, all of this built up a spiritual persona that knew the conceptual material in and out but was deeply lacking the actual experience of seeing absolutely no controller or agency in any of the 6 sense doors, this is what made me look.
The bit that pushed me over was seeing the "I" belief keep jumping to the next concept to continue hiding every time I looked for it. The "self" kept hiding in "awareness", it said " you cant find me in any of the sense doors and I am not thought, but what about this awareness thing, it feels so boundless and it doesn't seem to change. This is where the self is!"
This belief in an "I" sneakily tried to hide in the I AM concept, in awareness, until I shone the light on this - the belief I had was that there was a self IN experience controlling things NOT that the self was this nebulous boundless awareness thing. So I decided to attack the belief I actually had - that there was a self IN experience controlling things while allowing this background of awareness/I AM to remain undefined for now. And ofcourse looking at experience, there is no "thing" controlling anything else. And that is what a self is defined as - an entity that controls. So now it cant hide in awareness anymore, it cant hide at all, I can see clearly, there isn't even anything that could hide.
The self simply does not exist and never did.
