Again ... Why Am I Not My Brain?

[Viking]

1 step forward 10 back.. Fucking hell

i know the idea of my brain is just an idea, but why cant there exist a thing thats a brain and its me?

[Socrates]

@Ilya Watch what your brain is, it is just an idea which is not present in your direct experience. This cannot be you because when you don't have that though you are still there. You must be something everlasting in your present experience, to say the least.

[Loreena]

Because you're trying to identify with something that may or may not be the absolute truth. You identify with it because you're told or conditioned to do so. 

Its only identification. 

[Viking]

@Socrates that's exactly how i discarded that option in the past, but why should i be something everlasting in my present experience?

@Loreena sure it's an identification, but how do I get rid of that identification?

[Socrates]

@Ilya Because you are trying to find yourself. How can YOU be something occasional in your experience?

[Viking]

@Socrates what I meant was why should I exist in my experience at all? 

[Truth]

@Ilya

a more scientific perspective --> if you look at split brain patients where they cut the corpus colosseum this gives you a clue that you don't know who you are. 1 side of your brain is completely foreign to "you".

 

This next video is about a girl who had her ENTIRE right side of her brain removed and she still talks and acts just as she normally would. 

 

Even a post here on the forum where this dude was missing 90% of his brain! 

 

Hopefully you can see that there's already a part of "you" we can cut out. as for your further questions about you why you exist at all and ridding your identification, just first recognize that you are something radically different than what you currently think you are, that's your first step, then you can move onto finding out what and who you are existentially. 

Edited August 13, 2017 by Truth

[Shin]

17 minutes ago, Ilya said:

@Socrates what I meant was why should I exist in my experience at all? 

Because otherwise there wouldn't be any experience, so you must be there somewhere, don't you ?

[SOUL]

Are we our ass? Are we the poop in our ass before we poop it out? What about after it's pooped out?

Are we the billions and billions of individual biologically distinct microorganisms that are alive inside us?

Edited August 13, 2017 by SOUL

[Ramu]

@Truth Thats right!  That's why enlightenment can be so vexing.  We've been conditioned from birth to think we are the body and mind.  We're not.  We're consciousness.  That's why there's One.

[Heart of Space]

4 hours ago, Truth said:

@Ilya

a more scientific perspective --> if you look at split brain patients where they cut the corpus colosseum this gives you a clue that you don't know who you are. 1 side of your brain is completely foreign to "you".

 

 

 

Man, who's cutting onions in this thread?  Quit that, man.  

[Space]

12 hours ago, Ilya said:

1 step forward 10 back.. Fucking hell

i know the idea of my brain is just an idea, but why cant there exist a thing thats a brain and its me?

Avoid asking other people for answers to your inquiry, unless the question is about the process itself. You've got to figure these things out for yourself. That's the whole point.

Edited August 14, 2017 by Space

[WaveInTheOcean]

The brain of yours is a physical complex structure that is manifesting the illusory self <insert your name>. What you really are is *that* which is experiencing that illusory self; that which believes it is that self. And *whatever that is* can't be explained in words. You already are *it*, always has been and forever will be. *It* is absolutely nothing (and therefore everything). *It* is absolutely infinite (and therefore finite). *It* absolutely conscious (and therefore unconscious). *It* is the works, reality, the universe. *It* is alive and death. You are *it*.

[Telepresent]

16 hours ago, Ilya said:

1 step forward 10 back.. Fucking hell

i know the idea of my brain is just an idea, but why cant there exist a thing thats a brain and its me?

Fleurghugh (that's an attempt at approximating my mental reaction at how to start addressing this question!)  First off I agree entirely with @Space: we can't answer this in any way that will be meaningful, satisfying, or probably even useful to you.

Secondly, don't worry about going back and forth: I have to answer this question for myself several times every week, and each time the answer is slightly different and (hopefully) more nuanced, but every time I doubt I can't allow myself to say "well I know other people say it and I think I worked it out in the past, so I'll accept the idea and move on".  Nope, I need to work through it again.  And again.  And again.  Each time the doubt arises.  But each time I become more certain in my answer.

Those said, in an attempt to address this question: maybe there is a physical object residing in a head, called a brain.  Maybe it is receiving stimulation from eyes, ears, etc., and maybe it is firing off electro-chemical signals in response to those stimuli.  My question to you is, if that is the case, where is your conscious experience taking place?  In order for there to be a physical brain with all its electro-chemical firings, there must be an objective physical reality.  Great.  So is your conscious experience (your PERSONAL experience of colour, and sound, and feeling, and thinking) existing in that objective physical reality?  Is it?  And if not, where the hell IS it existing?  Another dimension, another reality, a pure hallucination (within or against the backdrop of... what)?  And how does that 'whatever' relate to the objective physical reality in which a brain sits and fires off electro-chemical signals?

[Viking]

@Telepresent wow thanks

[zazed]

When you ask this question, you actually are identifying with your brain.
Because who is asking the question, is your brain, it is just thoughts.

So the you who you referring to in this post, is your brain, or your thoughts.
But it is not really who you are. If you were not your brain, you would be fully awakened already.

@Socrates said pointed it out simply but powerfully. Your thoughts, are just one of many things in the your true self's experience.

[Nahm]

@Ilya Sit and focus on your breathing. Eventually, with practice of returning your focus to your breathing, your brain will stop. 

Yet, there you will be. Then you'll be, not your brain. 

Until you expand to that state, you are your brain. 

Edited August 14, 2017 by Nahm