Looking to have dialogue with a guide

[Xain]

The thought arises without an 'I' being involved yet somehow is recognised as resonating with truth. I don't actually understand how that happens.

Please remember we are looking at Direct Experience, not thought/mind. Thoughts arise in experience, but we are not looking for a thought, we are looking for this 'I', this 'me'. Can you find one?
There either is one, or there isn't one. Don't analyse this - LOOK!

When I look for 'me' as some kind of entity in experience there is just the tendency to grasp onto, or to resist life. Without 'me' life is happening.

Indeed, but analysis of what is happening is not required. All that is asked is to LOOK!
Look RIGHT NOW and answer RIGHT NOW.
Is there an 'I' looking? Is there a 'me' entity performing this investigation?
Don't think - LOOK and answer RIGHT NOW!

Xain ♥

[Hesed]

Hi Xain,

I seem to need a lot of time to not hink about this and paradoxically a lot of time to answer 'right now'

we are looking for this 'I', this 'me'. Can you find one?

No, have not found a me who is experiencing, thinking, investigating.

Is there an 'I' looking? Is there a 'me' entity performing this investigation?

No, what I think of as me is more like a narrator of events.

[Xain]

Thanks, Hesed.

Your answers are great Hesed.
Are you confident yourself that you have seen through the illusion, or is there anything further you would like to clarify?
If you are sure, then I can ask the final questions.

Xain ♥

[Hesed]

Hi Xain,

Somehow I don't feel in a hurry to move to the final questions but would rather allow things to unfold in their own time.

One thing that makes me hesitate is that I'm not sure categories of existing or not existing are quite the right language to talk about experience. They seem to fall into categories of thinking about experience. If I try to describe what I have experienced it seems to require poetry or paradox. I have seen that there is not an entity called me behind, or apart from experiencing, although sometimes it is assumed there is. Yet there is a sense of me being more like a fictional character without a story, or a character in a play without a script.... I don't believe fictional characters have a literal existence but they do exist as fictional characters with which you can interact.

There is no doubt that there is a continuing experience of unfoldment, physical, mental, emotional taking place through the dialogue I have been having with you. Other people seem to notice this and have commented that I " seem bigger, happier, very relaxed, well.... which is all true and I see this as only the beginnings of unfoldment into being more myself without me getting in the way. If you know what I mean.

[Hesed]

Just wanted to add that although I might not feel in a hurry with this process, I realise that you are giving freely of your time and I don't mean to take that for granted.

Best wishes H

[Xain]

Somehow I don't feel in a hurry to move to the final questions but would rather allow things to unfold in their own time.

That is fine.

One thing that makes me hesitate is that I'm not sure categories of existing or not existing are quite the right language to talk about experience.

Assuming you mean that what we refer to as 'I', 'me' does not exist, then this 'I' is more of a mental phantom.
'I' is a thought. If you take some items, say 'Table', 'Community' and 'Santa Claus', then 'table' is an item that exists. 'Community' is trickier, as it points to a general thing that exists, a concept rather than something specific.
'Santa Claus' points to something that doesn't exists, but everyone talks about him. Just like 'I', 'me'.
Search for Santa? None is found. Search for an 'I', 'me'? None is found.

If I try to describe what I have experienced it seems to require poetry or paradox.

Language is itself non-dualistic. It needs objects and concepts to work. It breaks down at the point when discussing absence of self. The only words one may use are those that 'point' to what is real, rather than describing it.
All language is a pointer anyway, as the Buddah said 'The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon'.

There is no doubt that there is a continuing experience of unfoldment, physical, mental, emotional taking place through the dialogue I have been having with you.

Oh yes, and this will continue. There are no starts or ends of anything.

I will let you comment and then ask you the final questions. There is no hurry in answering, but this will effectively finish the process and may just tease out any areas that you are not clear on.

Xain ♥

[Hesed]

Xain, just when I am adapting to there being no self, now your trying to tell me there's no santa claus :-)

I might need a bit more time to take that in.

[Xain]

Sorry about that. I hope that hasn't destroyed all your illusions and ruined Christmases from now onwards :-)
Still, there's no-one here to enjoy it is there - Ho ho ho! :-)

Anyway, joking aside, here are the first two questions for you, Hesed.

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

2) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

Xain ♥

[Hesed]

Hi Xain, here is a response to your questions

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

There is no seperate entity called self found apart from experiencing, except as a thought, or an interpretation of experience, a sort of narrator of experience.

There are memories but they are the so called past seen from present experience. If there is no self to be found in experience then there never was a self. There is not something that has been lost just that the, perhaps sometimes necessary, illusion of self has been seen as what it is, an illusion, which had been assumed to be something real.

How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days

I feel much more easily moved by people's pain and joys and generally more responsive to them. It has sometimes felt like going through what I imagine pshychotherapy might be like. A loosening of a whole range of feelings including emotional pain that felt more like it was passing through me, without feeling like it was necessarily my pain. I can sometimes see the tendency to interpret experience in terms of self reference but less likely to see anything as personal, therefore have not reacted to situations that I easily would have. There are questions that arise about awareness how anything happens. It feels like a process has started, an opening to life and a deepening sense of the mystery of existence.

[Xain]

Thank you, Hesed.

3) What was the last bit (if any) that pushed you over, made you look?

4) 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.

Xain ♥

[Hesed]

What was the last bit (if any) that pushed you over, made you look?

Not sure there was any one thing. I had been meditating more than usual, paying attention to bodily movements and sensations, to hearing, seeing, to thoughts arising, with the question is there anyone doing any of these. I reflected on whether there was awareness that then became aware of sounds etc. or if it arose with the sound, or other stimulus... This was all very intense. At some point It felt as though the seeming 'problem' of self had been cleaned ot of my system and for a couple of days there was a sense of abscense, awareness was more childlike, immediate, experiencing without a sense of a me who was experiencing. This is not as immediate as it was but there has been a subtle change since, as though the habit of self has not managed to quite take hold again.

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.

I noticed that sense of self became tighter, seemed more real in situations of fear, or when I wanted something out of experiences. I see the sense of a 'me' seperate from experiencing as a resistance to life, while grasping at life. In a dream it felt like I was dying and there was fear, panic that I would no longer be there, while at the same time seeing that there was not a self to lose, just fear perpetuating itself, throwing up the illusion of self. I see this illusion as an attempt to understand what is unknown and to hold onto something fixed apart from the flow of experience. It is a futile attempt to resist life, a habit, like an addiction .

[Xain]

Forgive me, I may not have worded or explained that last question fully. Try number 4 again, and here are the other two last questions.

4) Say someone had never heard of this 'illusion of separate self'.
How would you explain it to them. How did this illusion start, and how does it work?

5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen?
Give examples from your experience.

6) Do you have anything further that you would like to add?

Xain ♥

[Hesed]

Say someone had never heard of this 'illusion of separate self'.
How would you explain it to them. How did this illusion start, and how does it work?

The illusion of self starts with us trying to make sense of life. We learn to name things, cat, you , me etc. This is useful in order to communicate. We then learn that some of the things we have labelled are 'mine'. Believing in the idea of 'mine' also means believing in the idea of 'me'. We think in terms of my toys, my friends, my body, my teeth, my thoughts, my feelings, which means beliving in 'me', who posseses these 'things'. We become so attached to the idea of 'mine' and so in the idea of 'me' that we tend to resist anything that seems to threaten them. In reality there is no 'mine' and no 'me' they are just convenient labels, not real. Belief in 'me' creates a sense of separation from 'others'. The ultimate threat to this illusion is death and so we learn to fear it.

Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen?

I might tend to think so but there is no entity called 'me' seperate from life to control it.

Do you have anything further that you would like to add?

I feel at the beginning of a process. The habit of believing in a 'me' who controls 'my life', is the habit of a lifetime.

[Hesed]

Also want to add, thank for being there to do this, or should I say virtually being there;-)

[Xain]

Also want to add, thank for being there to do this, or should I say virtually being there;-)

:-)
You are very welcome, Hesed, but we are not quite finished here.
There may be more questions from other Guides just to really clarify things for you.

In the meantime . . .

5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen?

I might tend to think so but there is no entity called 'me' seperate from life to control it.

Your answer is a little woolly. Is there not a definite answer here?
Is there an 'I' who choose to think in a specific way?

Xain ♥