That is why I personally prefer to see clearly that I am not the creator of any thought that I know, including the thought, "no one knows my thoughts, therefore I am separate."
So . . . wow, yes. This one sentence offers so much food for . . . thought. So no thought can solve anything. No thought can get to the truth. I guess that's what they (and you) have been telling me. And this points right to its limits. I'm not done with it, yet, though. I guess because I'm stilling living through thought (even if I don't think I think thoughts or that they are me) I can't even imagine how you can drop that thought. "No one knows my thougths, therefore I am separate." That right there is the puzzle. It's why I still
think I'm separate, maybe why I still feel I'm separate. And I don't know how knowing that no I created it makes it necessarily false. Then again, if I really know that no I created it, then I know that . . . well I'm reduced to asking: couldn't there be no I and yet still be seperation? Do you see how, for me, this would all be easier to understand if you were telling me things were magic, that life is completely fake, not just misunderstood? Then I could just disbelieve everyting instead of trying to makes sense of everything you say in DE.
Anyway, more to the point:
Just for fun, lets pretend you are the doer. For the next waking cycle, look to see when you know what you will do next in DE. Report back how that goes for a separate doing self. Does it stand up to scrutiny?
This has been a fascinating experiment, indeed. Every time I've asked myself WHEN I know I will do something it ends up delaying the thing that happens. I pause, don't do it right away. Anything remotely rote happens far more automatically than I would have imagined. Brushing my teeth for instance . . . there's no thought connected with that. There does seem to be some kind of volition, that is not a thought. If I "decided" to lift my hand for no reason, it is certainly not the thought that makes it rise. That much is just obvious. We don't say "rise arm" in our heads and then see a subsequent action. But at the same time, if I decided to raise my arm three times for no reason, then I do. But, just as a thought comes not from me, but sometimes, from a thought before it, so the movement seems to come from a cognitive something (impulse, proto-thought) EVEN IF it is not an I that had the impulse. That is to say, it seems that something like a thought can cause a motion, but then the cause is put onto the thought, which has its own non personal cause. I know this is thinking about thought, about doership, about volition, but its the only way I can describe what I think I expereienced. Simialrly remembering a due date (or something like it) instigates action, but that is not at all to say I instigated the action.
It's all very peculiar. I don't know how on earth, if it's ALL just happening, it can feel so much like an "I" making it happen. What is the interface? If concsiousness is everywhere and the brain just makes things happen does this also mean a computer can think that it's doing its calculations? In other words, with things just happening, why have awareness at all? My body, brain, and thoughts can brush my teeth, cook, put the kids to bed without me. If awareness is just inactive knowing why have it at all? Why not just an unobserved, silent, colorless world of gears turning? I know, I know: why questions that have no answer. But I don't know how a curious mind cannot toy with such things.
There are times when thought seems to be neccesary, when it becomes the toolbox it was conceviably meant for. For example if I'm trying to put together a meal and two people are talking to me, the talking and the cooking stop being automatic and need a thought for direction. Again . . . the thought doesn't have to come from a "me."
Actually had a terrible time with anger today and I feel like I've gone a few steps backward. In short, the kids wouldn't listen at bedtime. I tried watching my actions, seeing if I knew when they would occur, but also trying to find the least egoic behavior to pursue. Eventually, though, some limit was reached and I expressed some anger. Immediately I asked myself who was doing that and why and immediatley I began to chuckle internally. Awareness was not angry, the anger was just a feeling (largely in my arms) and it dissipated. But then, when the same trigger occurred, the anger arose again. Ended up more angry at myself than anyone.
