The Gate

Hi Camus,
I received a few questions relating to some of your answers, let's start with these:

In your intro, regarding what you're looking for, you said:

Personal experience into "knowing" the direct experience of "no self" has been gradually experienced over many years and from intense periods of meditation and engagement with a teacher. Yet something remains...

how can an absence of the 'no self' be experienced exactly? What are you waiting for that is proof positive that the 'no self' is finally absent?

Regarding the question about responsibility, on the one hand you say there is no free will, and yet:

Without an identity of a self to engage, protect and feed, it is clear what needs to be done. It’s saying I’m sorry for some difficult interaction with another (a recent difficult encounter with an old friend). It’s taking responsibility for engaging in the world to help others and alleviating suffering (listening to a friend express his existential crisis and the meaning of life).

Here you claim that you have volition despite it all, and furthermore, there is good and bad, right and wrong behaviors for you to choose from. Can you elaborate on that?


I understand that there have been no big changes, but from beginning of thread to now…
what changes have you noticed?
How did those changes make you feel?

What did you feel you got from exploring the idea of the separate self?


regards
Ron

Dear Ron,

I can understand your questions. Any description is full of a synthesis of experiences and conceptualization of thoughts. How could it not be? The experience can’t be expressed, yet I’ll try to do my best. (smile) I may see clearly, yet I return to old patterns. A practice can help “me” to see “my” true nature, and yet it can also rekindle a grasping for some greater insight, to experience a more profound realization like those of the great masters. All of this is worth exploring.

What remains? What more must be done? Who exactly is looking?

It’s incredible to see how profoundly ordinary “we” are (and there is not even a “we” or an “I’)…the “self” seen through and exposed. How could one ever go back to thought constructs and identities? Yet here “I am,” without a cue, without a clear answer, without a knowing, without a leg to stand on, yet wonderfully engaged with another.

I go back to “my profound” (tongue-in-cheek) experiences of realization….so incredibly clear, yet completely worthless. Memories now, without flavor. Thoughts now, without sensations, …and who is grasping for more? Exactly how profound were these experiences? (smile)

All wonderful questions. Thank you for the opportunity to mutually probe deeper.

In your intro, regarding what you're looking for, you said:
Personal experience into "knowing" the direct experience of "no self" has been gradually experienced over many years and from intense periods of meditation and engagement with a teacher. Yet something remains...
how can an absence of the 'no self' be experienced exactly? What are you waiting for that is proof positive that the 'no self' is finally absent?

An absence of “no self” can’t be experienced. When the “self” is seen thought, what remains? Not a thing. Who would know that? A “recast-self” or a “no-self?” Neither?

Wonderful to be human (whatever that is). And with a lifetime of habits, scripts, mental constructs, there’s much to work through. To what end? Letting go of all constructs and beliefs yet engaging in the world. To what end? (smile)

Regarding the question about responsibility, on the one hand you say there is no free will, and yet:
Without an identity of a self to engage, protect and feed, it is clear what needs to be done. It’s saying I’m sorry for some difficult interaction with another (a recent difficult encounter with an old friend). It’s taking responsibility for engaging in the world to help others and alleviating suffering (listening to a friend express his existential crisis and the meaning of life).
Here you claim that you have volition despite it all, and furthermore, there is good and bad, right and wrong behaviors for you to choose from. Can you elaborate on that?

There are no concepts to hold to, yet we experience the world, a series of forms coming and going, in relationship to other forms. Within those forms, there are objective existences that require engaging…some with deadly consequences, others without a worry. Yes, existence is ultimately “one” and unknowable. Far beyond anything “I” experience with thoughts. Ultimately, “I” have no role in controlling anything. Life doesn’t belong to “me.” There is no “us (me).” To truly see the world as it is without a “self” projected on it, how liberating.

I understand that there have been no big changes, but from beginning of thread to now…
what changes have you noticed?

A coming back to the basics of “who” or “what” is “this,” without adding to it. Not even adding a deeper awareness or a more refined practice. A humble coming back, stripped of any attained mastery or precious insights.

How did those changes make you feel?

Very humble, without a grounding to anything.

What did you feel you got from exploring the idea of the separate self?

A realization that there is truly nothing to attain, to see, or to do…or to return to. To “live” from a place of “no attainment,” but without doing or trying to be. Then to go back and sit some more! (smile) To do what needs to be done. Without “knowing” or “not knowing,” but from a place without a voice of “self” calling all the shots.

Much love, and a deep bow,

Camus

Hi Camus,
Thanks for your thorough answers and trying to express what you experience. I know it's impossible to actually do, but I'd like both of us to be as clear if nothing is hiding, so let's pick up some more small rocks.


Right, the absence of self, as is the self can't be experienced, how can you stop experiencing what has never been there? It's like wanting the experience the non existence of Santa, absurd... Look right now, everything you experience is without a self, the self is imagined, not experienced. Going to each and every mall at Christmastime and exposing each fake Santa is not necessary.

You skipped this question:
What are you waiting for that is proof positive that the 'no self' is finally absent?

Wonderful to be human (whatever that is). And with a lifetime of habits, scripts, mental constructs, there’s much to work through. To what end? Letting go of all constructs and beliefs yet engaging in the world. To what end?

Is this work something you do? Perhaps it's a figure of speech but let's take a closer look at this assumed doer-ship and choice, make sure it's clear.

Put the palm of your hand facing up, and only curl (move) one finger each time (any finger), watch what is the difference of moving them with intention and then without intention, switch moving them with intention and without intention (but move them).

Do you find a real difference?

When you find yourself thinking about something else, and your fingers keep moving - does intention moves them, or they just move?

How is this intention controlled? Notice even if you do it very slowly - does intention affect action, or is that just something thought claims "I'm moving the 3rd finger now" etc?

Within those forms, there are objective existences that require engaging…some with deadly consequences, others without a worry. Yes, existence is ultimately “one” and unknowable. Far beyond anything “I” experience with thoughts. Ultimately, “I” have no role in controlling anything. Life doesn’t belong to “me.” There is no “us (me).” To truly see the world as it is without a “self” projected on it, how liberating.

It is indeed liberating. You say ultimately "I" has no role, but within the same breath you talk about objective existences that require engaging, life threatening stuff.
Please give me an example of such. What kind of engagement is your doing? Don't just brush it off, I really want you to look at this and find a clear engagement with will and all, if you can.

Very humble, without a grounding to anything.

To become humble still means you are holding on to a somebody who's now humble, I invite you to take another look, is there anyone here to feel humbled? No grounding speaks truth, isn't everything just the way it is - the only way it can be because it is?

A realization that there is truly nothing to attain, to see, or to do…or to return to. To “live” from a place of “no attainment,” but without doing or trying to be. Then to go back and sit some more! (smile) To do what needs to be done. Without “knowing” or “not knowing,” but from a place without a voice of “self” calling all the shots.

That's beautiful, and hopefully the doing part will be covered in your answer above.

Thank you for all this!
with love
Ron

Hi Ron,

Of course. I have no problem “picking up some more small rocks (or big ones)” or diving deeper.

Perhaps I can provide some more thoughts of how I have come to experience “all this” and some areas to investigate further. No doubt much of this will just create more confusion.

My experience of the self has been informed through years of meditation and many poignant moments through a lifetime. In awareness, whether on the cushion or in everyday life, the moment is empty of a narrative fed by a separate self-identity. The moment is as it is, without thoughts cascading endlessly. Yes, sensations and thoughts arise, but they are not grasped, and they fall into the background. There are gaps without anything. There is just an emptiness. It’s not even an emptiness. It’s a place of being, without knowing or not knowing. Even calling it an awareness is not a good description. Even trying to remember it is a problem.

Mind – this area is much harder to explain. One could say I have two minds (of course this is ludicrous, but let’s try anyway): 1) a mind of a body, a brain’s cognition of our senses and worldview and 2) a mind that is aware of an unknowable essence. Both experience thoughts. The cognitive thoughts make sense of our experiences through the body, sampling the world and analyzing it and reacting to perceived forms. The cognitive mind is prone to create a separate self, an identity. This identity is believed completely, protected and reinforced at all costs. The awareness mind can see that the cognitive mind worldview is fabricated. The “me” that is in it has been created by the cognitive mind. However, it’s important to not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The total belief in the self-identity is a problem. The world-view constructs, though approximations and incomplete, allow us to engage in a world of forms. Such forms are a body, life and death, relationships and a general interaction with all that is. All in relationships to one another, without some absolute notion of right or wrong, or good or evil or separateness. The cognitive mind has created a worldview, but at some moment of insight/breakthrough/crisis/kensho the aware mind realizes it, there is a shift. Hence, Santa is seen through as a friction. It’s a moment of transcendence, yet many artifacts can still remain subconsciously and can take years to uncover. These artifacts are often scripts that automatically engage in relationship to the world and others. Until they are exposed, we keep engaging them.

External world – a world to me is both mind-created (subjective) and an unknowable universe that comes into being through forms in relation to each other. I am this universe, but there is only an “I” that was created by my thoughts. My mind creates an objective world to understand the forms. The universe can’t be known through mind-created constructs or even the senses. However, a mind creates a world-picture, often with approximations of something that can’t be understand or grasped. This world-picture is useful because we also exist relative to these forms. The denial of an objective mind-perceived world is nihilism, nothing but an intellectual ditch of all reasoning and experience.

In the awareness moment transcending our cognitive world and self, there is no self or other, no time, no space, no understanding, and no form.

What are you waiting for that is proof positive that the 'no self' is finally absent?

Not a thing. The proof is not in a logically reasoned argument, nor is it in an experience.

Put the palm of your hand facing up, and only curl (move) one finger each time (any finger), watch what is the difference of moving them with intention and then without intention, switch moving them with intention and without intention (but move them).

Do you find a real difference?

No. How does one remove intention from the “without intention” action? Do I breathe intentionally or unintentionally? If I try to control my breathing, then I notice labored breathing.

When you find yourself thinking about something else, and your fingers keep moving - does intention moves them, or they just move?

Has the intention to move them been removed? Mind can initiate an action and our body can function without having to think through each muscle or function.

How is this intention controlled? Notice even if you do it very slowly - does intention affect action, or is that just something thought claims "I'm moving the 3rd finger now" etc?

How is this intention manifested? What initiates control? Thoughts. We don’t really need to see into our body’s complexity to control it do we. A thought is enough to initiate a body response.

What kind of engagement is your doing?

Life unfolds, it is as it is. My engagement with my partner unfolds as it does. Without engaging with thoughts that may indicate there was conflict, “I” may create suffering for her. Yes, it’s her thoughts that create suffering. And yes, I can create suffering for myself by trying to project some solution from thoughts. By not engaging in some identity of “me” I can response more compassionately. And ultimately, there is no shaping of some conceptual path forward of right or wrong response. A willful engagement implies shaping an outcome. A compassionate engagement is a response without a willful identity.

To become humble still means you are holding on to a somebody who's now humble, I invite you to take another look, is there anyone here to feel humbled?

Humility here means more that an identity. To know, and to not know. Yes, there is something beyond this. No, there is no one to find.

No grounding speaks truth, isn't everything just the way it is - the only way it can be because it is?

Yes.

Forgive my long descriptions and narratives.

Much love and appreciation, my friend,
Camus

Hi Ron,

Of course. I have no problem “picking up some more small rocks (or big ones)” or diving deeper.

Perhaps I can provide some more thoughts of how I have come to experience “all this” and some areas to investigate further. No doubt much of this will just create more confusion.

My experience of the self has been informed through years of meditation and many poignant moments through a lifetime. In awareness, whether on the cushion or in everyday life, the moment is empty of a narrative fed by a separate self-identity. The moment is as it is, without thoughts cascading endlessly. Yes, sensations and thoughts arise, but they are not grasped, and they fall into the background. There are gaps without anything. There is just an emptiness. It’s not even an emptiness. It’s a place of being, without knowing or not knowing. Even calling it an awareness is not a good description. Even trying to remember it is a problem.

Mind – this area is much harder to explain. One could say I have two minds (of course this is ludicrous, but let’s try anyway): 1) a mind of a body, a brain’s cognition of our senses and worldview and 2) a mind that is aware of an unknowable essence. Both experience thoughts. The cognitive thoughts make sense of our experiences through the body, sampling the world and analyzing it and reacting to perceived forms. The cognitive mind is prone to create a separate self, an identity. This identity is believed completely, protected and reinforced at all costs. The awareness mind can see that the cognitive mind worldview is fabricated. The “me” that is in it has been created by the cognitive mind. However, it’s important to not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The total belief in the self-identity is a problem. The world-view constructs, though approximations and incomplete, allow us to engage in a world of forms. Such forms are a body, life and death, relationships and a general interaction with all that is. All in relationships to one another, without some absolute notion of right or wrong, or good or evil or separateness. The cognitive mind has created a worldview, but at some moment of insight/breakthrough/crisis/kensho the aware mind realizes it, there is a shift. Hence, Santa is seen through as a friction. It’s a moment of transcendence, yet many artifacts can still remain subconsciously and can take years to uncover. These artifacts are often scripts that automatically engage in relationship to the world and others. Until they are exposed, we keep engaging them.

External world – a world to me is both mind-created (subjective) and an unknowable universe that comes into being through forms in relation to each other. I am this universe, but there is only an “I” that was created by my thoughts. My mind creates an objective world to understand the forms. The universe can’t be known through mind-created constructs or even the senses. However, a mind creates a world-picture, often with approximations of something that can’t be understand or grasped. This world-picture is useful because we also exist relative to these forms. The denial of an objective mind-perceived world is nihilism, nothing but an intellectual ditch of all reasoning and experience.

In the awareness moment transcending our cognitive world and self, there is no self or other, no time, no space, no understanding, and no form.

What are you waiting for that is proof positive that the 'no self' is finally absent?

Not a thing. The proof is not in a logically reasoned argument, nor is it in an experience.

Put the palm of your hand facing up, and only curl (move) one finger each time (any finger), watch what is the difference of moving them with intention and then without intention, switch moving them with intention and without intention (but move them).

Do you find a real difference?

No. How does one remove intention from the “without intention” action? Do I breathe intentionally or unintentionally? If I try to control my breathing, then I notice labored breathing.

When you find yourself thinking about something else, and your fingers keep moving - does intention moves them, or they just move?

Has the intention to move them been removed? Mind can initiate an action and our body can function without having to think through each muscle or function.

How is this intention controlled? Notice even if you do it very slowly - does intention affect action, or is that just something thought claims "I'm moving the 3rd finger now" etc?

How is this intention manifested? What initiates control? Thoughts. We don’t really need to see into our body’s complexity to control it do we. A thought is enough to initiate a body response.

What kind of engagement is your doing?

Life unfolds, it is as it is. My engagement with my partner unfolds as it does. Without engaging with thoughts that may indicate there was conflict, “I” may create suffering for her. Yes, it’s her thoughts that create suffering. And yes, I can create suffering for myself by trying to project some solution from thoughts. By not engaging in some identity of “me” I can response more compassionately. And ultimately, there is no shaping of some conceptual path forward of right or wrong response. A willful engagement implies shaping an outcome. A compassionate engagement is a response without a willful identity.

To become humble still means you are holding on to a somebody who's now humble, I invite you to take another look, is there anyone here to feel humbled?

Humility here means more that an identity. To know, and to not know. Yes, there is something beyond this. No, there is no one to find.

No grounding speaks truth, isn't everything just the way it is - the only way it can be because it is?

Yes.

Forgive my long descriptions and narratives.

Much love and appreciation, my friend,
Camus

Hi Ron,

Of course. I have no problem “picking up some more small rocks (or big ones)” or diving deeper.

Perhaps I can provide some more thoughts of how I have come to experience “all this” and some areas to investigate further. No doubt much of this will just create more confusion.

My experience of the self has been informed through years of meditation and many poignant moments through a lifetime. In awareness, whether on the cushion or in everyday life, the moment is empty of a narrative fed by a separate self-identity. The moment is as it is, without thoughts cascading endlessly. Yes, sensations and thoughts arise, but they are not grasped, and they fall into the background. There are gaps without anything. There is just an emptiness. It’s not even an emptiness. It’s a place of being, without knowing or not knowing. Even calling it an awareness is not a good description. Even trying to remember it is a problem.

Mind – this area is much harder to explain. One could say I have two minds (of course this is ludicrous, but let’s try anyway): 1) a mind of a body, a brain’s cognition of our senses and worldview and 2) a mind that is aware of an unknowable essence. Both experience thoughts. The cognitive thoughts make sense of our experiences through the body, sampling the world and analyzing it and reacting to perceived forms. The cognitive mind is prone to create a separate self, an identity. This identity is believed completely, protected and reinforced at all costs. The awareness mind can see that the cognitive mind worldview is fabricated. The “me” that is in it has been created by the cognitive mind. However, it’s important to not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The total belief in the self-identity is a problem. The world-view constructs, though approximations and incomplete, allow us to engage in a world of forms. Such forms are a body, life and death, relationships and a general interaction with all that is. All in relationships to one another, without some absolute notion of right or wrong, or good or evil or separateness. The cognitive mind has created a worldview, but at some moment of insight/breakthrough/crisis/kensho the aware mind realizes it, there is a shift. Hence, Santa is seen through as a friction. It’s a moment of transcendence, yet many artifacts can still remain subconsciously and can take years to uncover. These artifacts are often scripts that automatically engage in relationship to the world and others. Until they are exposed, we keep engaging them.

External world – a world to me is both mind-created (subjective) and an unknowable universe that comes into being through forms in relation to each other. I am this universe, but there is only an “I” that was created by my thoughts. My mind creates an objective world to understand the forms. The universe can’t be known through mind-created constructs or even the senses. However, a mind creates a world-picture, often with approximations of something that can’t be understand or grasped. This world-picture is useful because we also exist relative to these forms. The denial of an objective mind-perceived world is nihilism, nothing but an intellectual ditch of all reasoning and experience.

In the awareness moment transcending our cognitive world and self, there is no self or other, no time, no space, no understanding, and no form.

What are you waiting for that is proof positive that the 'no self' is finally absent?

Not a thing. The proof is not in a logically reasoned argument, nor is it in an experience.

Put the palm of your hand facing up, and only curl (move) one finger each time (any finger), watch what is the difference of moving them with intention and then without intention, switch moving them with intention and without intention (but move them).

Do you find a real difference?

No. How does one remove intention from the “without intention” action? Do I breathe intentionally or unintentionally? If I try to control my breathing, then I notice labored breathing.

When you find yourself thinking about something else, and your fingers keep moving - does intention moves them, or they just move?

Has the intention to move them been removed? Mind can initiate an action and our body can function without having to think through each muscle or function.

How is this intention controlled? Notice even if you do it very slowly - does intention affect action, or is that just something thought claims "I'm moving the 3rd finger now" etc?

How is this intention manifested? What initiates control? Thoughts. We don’t really need to see into our body’s complexity to control it do we. A thought is enough to initiate a body response.

What kind of engagement is your doing?

Life unfolds, it is as it is. My engagement with my partner unfolds as it does. Without engaging with thoughts that may indicate there was conflict, “I” may create suffering for her. Yes, it’s her thoughts that create suffering. And yes, I can create suffering for myself by trying to project some solution from thoughts. By not engaging in some identity of “me” I can response more compassionately. And ultimately, there is no shaping of some conceptual path forward of right or wrong response. A willful engagement implies shaping an outcome. A compassionate engagement is a response without a willful identity.

To become humble still means you are holding on to a somebody who's now humble, I invite you to take another look, is there anyone here to feel humbled?

Humility here means more that an identity. To know, and to not know. Yes, there is something beyond this. No, there is no one to find.

No grounding speaks truth, isn't everything just the way it is - the only way it can be because it is?

Yes.

Forgive my long descriptions and narratives.

Much love and appreciation, my friend,
Camus

Hi Camus,
I used to be very much engaged in the explanations, the need for this to make sense was strong, and at times these types of thoughts still arise. What I have realized however, was that they are mental masturbation, you walk in a maze that seem to lead you deeper and deeper into the secrets of existence and all of a sudden you find yourself where you started, complete fabrication and utter delusion. That's what thoughts do best, fabricate. I do understand the need to integrate what is seen with the dream, but it's not done through analysis, it's done through continued looking - i.e. the continued realization of what is experienced and what is imagined. That's it! Insights will come on their own, there is no need to derive theories of multiple minds or anything. Resistance is futile.

The one advice I'd like to give you is - When you find yourself deep in thoughts about thought about self and awareness, realize you're deep in dreamland and that there is no way of thinking that will take you beyond thinking, then drop it and look what's here.

One thing caught my eye:

The cognitive thoughts make sense of our experiences through the body, sampling the world and analyzing it and reacting to perceived forms.

This is a belief in self and in the body being the center of awareness. We did a couple of exercises to reveal that very dominant illusion. Is there a me in here and a world out there? It sure can seem that way, but what does actual experience show? The sound is just sound, the sight is just colors forming imagined edges and shapes. Hold a cup in your hand and notice - what makes the assumption that there is a cup object held by a hand object, and the hand object is somehow a me object. Notice how the thought comes to explain that you see the cup with the eyes at such and such distance, that there is an implied subject and an object. Can that subject be known? What makes it so convincing? Maybe spend some time with this one.

I'd like to offer you another way of looking at this. Think about your night dream, are you the avatar in your dream and the person, or cat you talk to in the dream separate from you? Isn't ALL of it created in the same way? Do you know what you're going to say anymore than you know what the other person is going to say?

If I try to control my breathing, then I notice labored breathing.

Is a decision to watch the breath is any different than a decision to get up of the chair or walk to the fridge? Is it your doing or is there just happening that is not even noticed 99% of the time, and sometimes it is noted.
Is there a decision to control the breathing followed by breathing being controlled?
If this is not clear, don't just agree, challenge it, test it.

Mind can initiate an action and our body can function without having to think through each muscle or function.

You keep speaking of a mind as if it were an entity.
Can you find a mind?
When you observe the mind, what is it?

Muscle function, autonomic nervous system, brain, nerves - these are all concepts that cannot be found, you talk about them as if they were real things because you went to school and was taught that. These are all explanation attempts to make sense of this, but based on a big big assumptions - that there is a world out there made of inert matter, and a person here made of inert matter. This is a dead end Camus, this is where we started the inquiry. I think it would be great if you go back to the actual experience exercises, look at the thoughts again and what they are.

How is this intention manifested? What initiates control? Thoughts ..... A thought is enough to initiate a body response.

Are you able to create or control thoughts? We've looked at this, but it seems unclear again.
And another question is - do thoughts create action, a body response?
You really need to spend time with this belief, yes, it's a belief.
The problem is that you are acknowledge that most body action is automatic, unnoticed, but you give it a concept like "mind control" and "muscle function" can you see that these are groundless beliefs? It's a model, a concept explanation that you just accepted without a shred of actual experience.
If thought causes action, does it always? Think about raising your hand but don't. Think about raising your hand and do. Can you find the point where the thought causes the action?

I'm going to stop here as this is getting long and I'd like to ask you to take a couple of days and go back to the beginning and do the exercises and really really look this time, notice the thoughts and don't fall into the stories they tell.

with love
Ron

Dear Ron,

Yes, mind-generated rubbish! Clearly feeding a story and refined scripts. Not completely cutting through the "umbilical cord." So here I am, on the edge. Can I let go of the scripts and fabricated world of a practice and “me?” Can I truly let “me” die? And finally let go “completely” of all the “me” scripts and beliefs?

This morning I went back to the exercise of imagining eating a piece of fruit, and then actually eating the fruit. It’s a powerful experience. Everything in the moment is as it is, complete, without needing a story or thought to support it. So many times, I have experienced the wonderful bliss of the moment, completely full, not needing a thing, yet I have gone back to the stories…and refined them and folded them into a practice…. longing and grasping for something else. Seeing “that” clearly this morning was profound, but incredibly subtle and simple. I didn’t need to go back to my cushion to sit, I didn’t need to silence the noise around me, and I didn’t need to do anything. Everything “as it is” was perfectly fine. I could see thoughts feeding the old scripts, but I didn’t engage with them. I just came back to seeing the cat in the window, the trees outside, the feel of the coffee cup, the taste of coffee and the experience of just “being.” It’s truly effortless.

Nothing more to say…can pick up your questions later.

Much love,
Camus

Can I let go of the scripts and fabricated world of a practice and “me?” Can I truly let “me” die? And finally let go “completely” of all the “me” scripts and beliefs?

Who is asking?
Who needs to die? An idea?

Also note

Can I truly let “me” die?

Are there two of you? The "I" that would let me die, so that I am left pure and real.

There is no I, no me to die.
The story will go on as it always has, there was never an "I" or a "me" running the show, yet the story shows up.

Who is asking?
Who needs to die? An idea?

There is no one there. The question no longer has meaning.
Wonderful clarity now.

Much thanks, dear friend,
Camus

Dear Camus,
That sounds wonderful 😊

Please take your time and answer/modify your previous reply as it is seen now:

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

2) Share in your own words what the illusion of separate self is and how it shows up in experience.

3) How does it feel to see this?
What is the difference from before you started this dialogue?

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?

Dear Ron,

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

No, there is no separate self. It's a delusion of thoughts. No, there never was a separate self, only thoughts, and concepts about a self. It has never existed, in any shape or form, not now, or ever.

2) Share in your own words what the illusion of separate self is and how it shows up in experience.

It's a concept created from thoughts. It shows up as an identity, a body, a mind, or a world fabricated by thoughts. We’re caught in the illusion and feed it with our thoughts.

3) How does it feel to see this?

Wonderful, and so simple.

What is the difference from before you started this dialogue?

I had spent a lifetime of spiritual and intellectual inquiry, going deeper and deeper in concepts, analysis, and practices, but never finding any real understanding or end to the searching. For the past few decades, I have been deeply committed to a practice. Early on I had an experience that exposed a fool-hearted effort to attain and experience an awakening. It was so simple; it was thoughts and thinking that were the problem. I wrote then; "that was the problem, my thinking! Everything I did was a product of "thinking" and preconceived notions of "awakening" that would get me nowhere. I also realized that there was NOTHING I could do. Anything that I did was just more "self" and that was the problem.” Unfortunately, I still believed that there was more, i.e. greater insight and much more work to do! That notion was reinforced by a teacher and a tradition. So, I sat longer, I did more retreats and residencies, but nothing more came.

This simple, but direct dialogue exposed that notion of “more.” Who wants more? Who is this? The exercises exposed my attachment to a practice that was supposably “making” me better. I had to see that I was still attached to several beliefs about myself and the world. Coming back to “direct experience” and the sensations in each moment, forced me to see that everything as it “is” IS complete, not needing anything.

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

Returning to several exercises (experiencing and thinking about eating a piece of fruit and moving a finger) that exposed thoughts and notions of control to direct experience. Then returning to the question of “who know this,” something finally saw through the “who.” There was no one there. The experience of just “being” was enough and complete.

5) a) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work?

Decision, intention, free will, choice and control are all illusions of the mind. The world is as it is and there is no one separate from it to control something. Any identity to these concepts is purely through thoughts.

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

The exercise of moving a finger exposed how the mind may believe it is controlling something. But in fact, the experience was that there was no one controlling the movement. Movement could happen with or without thought. It took several returning to this exercise to see this clearly.

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

There is no one to be responsible for. If I have a belief that I need to do or be something, then I just feed thoughts and conceptualize actions. I thought I needed to continually work to be a better person and make the world a better place. This belief does nothing more than conceptualize a world and a response. The world is as it is. Wonderfully complete with everything.

6) Anything to add?

Thank you for your patience.

Much love and appreciation, my friend,
Camus

Dear Camus,
There are no further questions for you. It has been a genuine pleasure to explore the concept of the separate self with you. Thank you for being so open and willing to look through it all, I enjoyed our dialogue.

Keep an eye out for a PM notification (it will show up next to your username) from the forum inviting you to join our aftercare group on Facebook. Your username will be changed from green to blue and soon this thread will be moved to the ‘Archive’ section of the forum, and you will be able to access it with the same link as your thread.

I will remind you that this is not the end of the road to awakening, it's now a great time to see through the other beliefs, with love and joy.

I will be happy to connect and point you to some further investigations.
I'll see you on the other side 😌

With love
Ron

Dear Ron,

Wonderful to walking through all this with you.

Thank you very much, my friend,

Camus