The Gate

Hey Marc,

To say experience is changeless is a thorn to remove the idea experience changes. But to say experience is changeless fails to describe experience.

'Changing' and 'changeless' are labels, not AE. When I look directly to the present experience I don't see how it was before, therefore I cannot say whether things are changing or not, such a statement can only be produced by thought. Only thought produces the idea of time. AE just happens, it is (t)here/now.

Beautifully expressed!

Yes, and is thought anything other than experience itself?

'When' a 'thought' occurs, thought is the experience itself. A concept like thought just isn't there, there's just IT, the experience of thought happening.

If you put aside the definition of what a thought is…then all there is, is THIS appearing exactly as it is. It is only thought that points THIS and calls it a thought thereby dividing THIS into a category called thoughts. If thoughts were expressed via the tweeting of birds or an unknown language, how would you know what they meant? What meaning is given to thoughts are only just thoughts about thoughts.

Drop the label ‘thought’ and when a SEEMING ‘thought’ appears, what remains is THIS…appearing exactly as it is. Is this clear?

I

GNORE ALL object labels and colour labels - are there many colourS? Or is there simply colour?
Is there an actual gap between the ‘trees’? Where does colour begin and end?

There's only one : colour. There are no trees neither gaps. No beginning, no end. It is thought that divides reality but AE doesn't "do" anything, it is undivided.

Yes…so there is just seamless ‘colour’ ie seamless colourthoughtsmelltastesensationsound.

What is the memory ‘made of’?

A memory is a thought or a series of thoughts that point to other thoughts about images, sensations, words and so on.

Yep..it is simply AE of thought.

What is the exact difference between a ‘general’ thought and a ‘memory’ thought?

A 'general' thought can refer to AE ('ouch, this is painfull') or to a thought whereas a ‘memory’ thought can only be a thought about thought. A memory thought can only refer to the past, which is a thought, only the present is.

It doesn’t matter if thought labels thoughts as ‘general’, ‘current’, ‘past’, ‘memory’, ‘future’, ‘belief’…they are all simply thought. There is no hierarchy of thought.

Let's see if there is something unclear. Please answer what's true for you right now, rather than any sort of 'ideal' answer.

Is there a separate individual/entity that is the ‘experiencer’?

Is there a separate entity that is the doer?

Is there ‘someone/something’ who can control what happens?

Is there a ‘self’ that can ‘make decisions’ or that can 'choose' anything?

Is there a separate 'self’ who ‘does the thinking’?

Or a ‘separate self’ that is the body or is inside the body?

Are thought, sensation, colour, sound, taste and smell ‘experienced’ by a ‘separate self’?

Is there a ‘self’ ‘in here’ which is separate from the world and others ‘out there’?

Is the ‘separate self’ anything other than a imaginary story?

Is there any confusion at all or anything you would like to address?

Looking forward to your answers!

Hello Kay,

Drop the label ‘thought’ and when a SEEMING ‘thought’ appears, what remains is THIS…appearing exactly as it is. Is this clear?

Yes, very clear. Only silence remains to witness / describe the happening experience, which can be a thought or a sensation.
Same as when seeing, there's no seer and no labelling of the seen or seeing, there's just the 'nameless flow'.

seamless colourthoughtsmelltastesensationsound

Yes, no swimmer and river, just riverswimmer/swimmerriver.

Is there a separate individual/entity that is the ‘experiencer’?

No, this is clear. The trinity is one : seeer-seeing-seen is one experience with no 'one' doing something.

Is there a separate entity that is the doer?

Well I didn't see any :), not in 'body', not in 'mind', the 'home' is empty, there's no home, everything is home.

Is there ‘someone/something’ who can control what happens?

No, no-one, what happens just happens. Sensations appear and disappear, thoughts appear and disappear. No 'I' does them, no entity undoes them.

Is there a ‘self’ that can ‘make decisions’ or that can 'choose' anything?

No. There's no 'self', 'entity' 'me' that can make/prepare/cook a thought in order to become a decision.

Is there a separate 'self’ who ‘does the thinking’?

No separate 'I' exists separately from awareness, how could it ? There's no look-alike or twin of awareness.
The thinking is beyond any voluntary action, it's a phenomenon, like sensations.

Or a ‘separate self’ that is the body or is inside the body?

When looking the experience is only colours, when feeling the experience is only sensations, a body is only thought, concept. What I can be a thought or in a thought ?

Are thought, sensation, colour, sound, taste and smell ‘experienced’ by a ‘separate self’?

No, they are just experienced 'like that', not by some-one.

Is there a ‘self’ ‘in here’ which is separate from the world and others ‘out there’?

No, there's no self outside of the world, there's no self separate from others that would be out of them.
There's just one well mixed soup and we are the vegetables :).

Is the ‘separate self’ anything other than a imaginary story?

A separate self is just a story, like Santa Claus, who unfortunately doesn't exist either.

Is there any confusion at all or anything you would like to address?

No, I do not have any confusion with the message received.
I would like to thank you and the whole LU team warmheartedly for this remarkable job.
It is a really wonderfull experience. It substantially enhanced my view.
If, in one way or another, I could contribute to the growth of your movement, that would interest me. Please let me know.

Thanks again,

Marc

Hey Marc,

Is there a ‘self’ ‘in here’ which is separate from the world and others ‘out there’?

No, there's no self outside of the world, there's no self separate from others that would be out of them.
There's just one well mixed soup and we are the vegetables :).

LOL...loved this analogy! The seeming 'we's' and the seeming world are the vegetables in the soup! But all there really is, is soup!

Okay...since you have no questions for me and everything is clear for you, then I would like for you to answer the following questions please. Could you answer them with some detail and 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?

Kay

Hello Kay,

since you have no questions for me and everything is clear for you

If with 'everything is clear' you mean that in my AE it is clear that there's no self, then yes, it's clear : I don't see/smell/hear/touch/taste any self in AE, only a thought can imagine a self but the content of thought is only the content of a thought and I can't see/smell/hear/touch/taste the content of a thought.
There's also no separate self, that exists independently from 'the rest' because there's no division between 'self' and 'the rest'.
I also see that precisely because there's no separate self, the illusory nature of self is necessarily the same for all experience, the 'whole soup'. Since there is no self, no subject can meet an object. Objects are unfindable : I experience no table but see colours, feel a touch, smell the odour of wood.

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

An entity, a ‘self’, a ‘me’ or an ‘I’, cannot be found in or as AE and there is nothing outside of AE because one can’t experience what would be outside of the field of one’s experience. AE shows that AE functions without having to be activated or organized by a self. Days and nights follow each other without someone rotating the earth and keeping the sun in place. Sensations and thoughts occur without some entity activating them. Therefore there’s no self.

Was there ever?

There’s nothing in AE that reveals that a self would have been activating experience before; therefore there has never been a self.

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.

In experience, the illusion of a separate self is an inner tension based on the mistaken differentiation of on the one hand what is experienced and on the other hand an imagined operating centre that is assumed to function independently from the experienced.
This tension, based on the unawareness of the fact that it is the experience itself, solidifies the experience and creates otherness, erroneously differentiating it from the ‘one’ who lives that experience.
It all begins with a kind of restlessness, a dividing movement that breaks the harmony/perfectness; the flow tries to grasp itself and ignites creativity whereby appearances are seen as being solid and ‘other’, giving rise to a feeling of duality and incompleteness.
Once the ‘selfing’ movement is launched, thoughts arise giving subsequently birth to attachment, dislike or indifference to the objects of thoughts.

3) How does it feel to see this?

Seeing this generates mixed feelings:
- a joy of having realized a truth;
- a liberating feeling because the burden of false beliefs in the ‘hardness’ of a self is abandoned ;
- solace based on the realization that no-one will die, that only experience will change;
- a feeling of certainty because one looks directly to experience and isn’t immersed in / preoccupied with dreamy content anymore;

What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

Generally speaking, I feel better. There's inner clarity where previously there was doubt and obscurity. Much more simplicity, straightforwardness.
I have some difficulty remembering the different stages of the process that took place because I did not take notes of the daily evolution of my thoughts, except of course the posted answers. I had an inner questioning every day, confronting my operating habits with the questions asked during our dialogue. Over the course of this work I felt a kind of joy rising, a little like when you slowly recognize someone you haven't seen for a very long time.

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

Answering all the questions required time and work and the further the process went on the more I felt that after all these questions I had to know the truth once and forever and therefore drop all possible masks or tricks. That’s how I made an extra effort to look directly at experience as it is and not as I thought it was.

5) a) Describe decision

‘Decision’ is a label that a thought puts on another thought. No "I" can make a decision because there's no separate "I" / self that exists independently from the thought-decision. When there is a thought the I is the thought.

intention

,
‘Intention’ is a thought labelling one or more other thoughts about an imagined future; in the AE there are only thoughts.

free will

‘Free will’ is a thought based on the thought that there is an “I” that makes thoughts happen. Since an independently existing “I” is not found in AE, there’s no ‘I’ that is free or not free.
Free will doesn’t exist other than as a thought because no second, ‘other’, awareness exists separately from awareness itself. No twin of awareness (second awareness) decides what will appear in the first awareness, let alone that it would decide ‘freely’ how something will appear (or not) in awareness.

choice

‘Choice’ is a thought that tends to label thoughts.
A choice between A and B presupposes there’s a C that makes the choice. ‘Choice’ implies that there would be an “I” that makes thoughts happen, which is contrary to experience.
If I say ‘I choose A' it is clear - when looking to AE- that this statement is in itself only a thought (decision) about thoughts (the options).
Since in AE thoughts occur in an unplanned process the choice-thought necessarily also occurs in an unplanned way, which implies that there is no choice.

control

‘Control’ is a thought that presupposes an ‘I’ that can act independently from anything and freely make reality be one way or another, which is contrary to experience.

What makes things happen?

Things happen spontaneously. No ‘thing’ makes things happen.
Neither does thinking make reality: horned rabbits do not exist because we do not see/hear/smell/taste/touch horned rabbits, we can only think about/imagine horned rabbits but his doesn't make them come into existence.

How does it work?

Reality can be known as experience but how reality works cannot be known because nothing exists independently from reality in order to see it function independently from itself which is necessary for knowing how it works.
We can only 'know' reality in/as duality: a subject considers itself to be real and different/independent from an object that it also thinks to be real. In non-duality reality simply is what is, there is no other, no one, no-thing called reality, the knowing is the reality.

Give examples from your own recent experiences to how things happen and how things work.

Same as I looked for an apple in the picture of an apple, looking to my hand I try to see where exactly in the colours is the hand, the more I look the more the feeling 'this is my hand' vanishes and gives way to the feeling that 'my hand' can't be colours. I further only experience the feeling but that feeling is not a 'hand'.
Further, 'my hand' can't be 'a peace of flesh and bones' because 'flesh and bones' (just like 'the brain') doesn't exist in AE, 'flesh and bones' is a thought.
For all these reasons 'this is my hand' is a lie/dream. This lie/dream functions to preserve the lie/dream of self.
Again, same as I looked for an apple in the picture of an apple, when I look into my mind I see nothing at all, no square, no triangle, no colour that is 'me' or 'my mind'.
Similarly I may look to my car and ask myself 'where precisely in this pile of scrap is my car', I don't see/hear/smell/ touch/taste or think 'car' in the seen colours, in the heard sound of the car, in the odour of the car etc.
Only an imputed car makes a car, apart from that label there’s no car. The concept 'car' is only the consequence of the thought that there is a car. Same for 'self', it's only imputed, thought.

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

'Responsible' is a thought about other thoughts.
No ‘I’ being found in AE, no-one can be responsible or accountable. No-one can be right or wrong, educated or uneducated. 'Responsible' literally means 'able to give an answer'. An answer suposes a question, duality. In actual experience there's no duality, no question, no answer, no self, no other, all is the experience.

6) Anything to add?

Silence is the only way not to betray reality, :).

Thank you very, very much !

Marc

Hey Marc,

Is there any confusion at all or anything you would like to address?

No, I do not have any confusion with the message received.
I would like to thank you and the whole LU team warmheartedly for this remarkable job.
It is a really wonderfull experience. It substantially enhanced my view.
If, in one way or another, I could contribute to the growth of your movement, that would interest me. Please let me know.

I am going to get another guide to read your thread to make sure that I have covered everything and that my pointing is clear. The guide reading your thread may have further questions for you, depending on my pointing! Once they come back with the all clear, you will be sent an invitation via the forums PM system inviting you to LU's Facebook groups and to become a guide, if you so wish.

Kay

Hey Marc,

Congratulations, and welcome through the Gateless Gate! There are no further questions for you. It has been a pleasure to explore the concept of the separate self with you and point the way. Thank you for being so open and willing to LOOK!

Keep an eye out for an email notification, within the next couple of days, 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, on the forum, will change from green to blue which indicates that you have had the realisation of there being no separate self.

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.

Love, Kay