Dear Vivien,
Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
No there was never a separate self in reality but it was imagined, it was a belief in a thought. It arises as a thought with different situations, sometimes its seen straight away and sometimes belief in it happens for some time and uncomfortable feelings arise and then those feelings help to recognise that ‘I ‘ thought as the root of discomfort.
) 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.
Self is created by a belief in the existence of a world prior to ‘me’. The belief in this model of the world reinforces the existence of separate selves and objects and how an independent self is to be protected from others and nurtured with love. On behalf of this ‘Self’ everything is done, everything is felt , everything is sought for or feared. This also leads to the fear of death and desire for more as the independent self is limited in time and space. This illusion is fool proof as every phenomena is explained through this model and the ‘others’ that are perceived confirm to all the beliefs. Some questions that still remained unanswered are answered by the blanket rule of Karma that applies to every living being. Also to keep this ‘Self’ alive forever, its referred to as the ‘Soul’ so that the body dies but the ‘Soul’ continues forever in different bodies. So then the motivation is provided to do good deeds and be born in better circumstances and so all the preferences for doing good is also seen as based on the fear of suffering later in some other life if its not done. This whole illusion creates a way of life that is restricted with the bondage of Karma and the only way out is salvation ‘of’ this ‘individual self’. Again this model never strives for salvation ‘from’ this ‘individual self’.
How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.
To actually SEE this as just a belief is like having a weight of a mountain lifted off from the shoulders!! When I started this dialogue I believed strongly that 'I' as a soul intended to achieve ‘my’ salvation in this birth so I get free from the cycles of birth and death and then there is some pure heaven where souls rest forever without inhabiting a body. I also strongly believed in good karmas and to not hurt anyone as otherwise this goal of my life will never be fulfilled. So I can see it clearly that it was all very ‘self’ driven though the ‘self’ was seen as a soul and not a body.
But over the course of this dialogue and contemplating on the knowledge of ‘no self’ and how this belief deeply colors all the experiences and then finally seeing the whole model of world fall apart when the belief of a separate self is seen as just an arising thought with no existence in reality, this itself is seen as liberation/ salvation that ‘I’ was striving for!!
What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?
The first time ‘I’ as a separate self came in to questioning, after reading the first interview in the Gate crashers book. That started the process but over the course of this discussion and being hammered about the belief in content of thoughts actually made the seeing possible that the ideas about self and questions relating to it were just the content of thoughts and nothing more.
It’s just so easy to keep looping in to the thought circle until unless the person guiding is not getting in to your loop of thoughts but pulling you out by constantly pointing out that ‘you’ are still spilling out the contents of thoughts and not actually concentrating in the actual experience of being.
The Darth Vader example is also a good one :) when taken in deeply, it was at that point the realization happened that person or object in thought is not real but an image! Its simple when I see it now that very easily the content of thought is believed to be actually ‘real’ and that belief is not even realized as belief. It’s then the realization happened that the belief of ‘me’ sitting on the chair typing this is also just an image in the mind which is nothing more than the content of an arising thought.
Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.
Decision and intention is clearly seen as thoughts that reinforce the belief of a separate ‘self’. Free will, choice and control are all the aspects and functions of the separate self that is believed to exist somewhere inside the body. When the illusion of ‘self’ is seen through careful scrutiny, it is then seen that things happen spontaneously but closely followed by an ‘I’ thought. So there is no ‘separate self’ responsible for anything. All there is, is experiencing of happenings arising in Awareness and of course all the words used to describe this process are labels used to explain it as best it can be explained and none of the labels are actually the facts.
So the smallest task of waking up in the morning can be seen that there is no ‘self’ ordering the body to wake up. And when Seeing the complex task of interacting with some other body, its seen that there is no ‘self’ that can be found that orders the eyes to make eye contact and simultaneously orders the tongue to speak words while directing the mind to form the sentences. Its just seen as experiencing of the sight, sounds, thoughts and movement happening simultaneously. Words are seen as sounds then interpreted by the thoughts and that interpretation is believed.
Anything to add?
Gratitude towards ‘everyone’ involved in this process of providing a platform where the ‘self’ is welcomed and systematically dissected in to nothing :) and the clear ‘Awareness’ or ‘Spaciousness’ opened up to infuse the life that is now going to be lived in oneness.
Thank you with lots of love
Usha
