Higher Self Lower Self

[Anton Rogachevski]

What happens to the higher and lower self once you are enlightened?

Do they remain seperate?

[Toby]

Both drop away, I guess.

[Emerald]

35 minutes ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

What happens to the higher and lower self once you are enlightened?

Do they remain seperate?

There is only ever the higher self (speaking metaphorically). The lower self is the illusion. Enlightenment is living without the illusion of the lower self.

[governor]

44 minutes ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

The lower self is the illusion. Enlightenment is living without the illusion of the lower self.

but,what happens with the "lower self" when it's seen as nothing more than an illusion? (it kinda seems like saying to a kid its just the wind -when inside your  just hoping like hell that it is nothing more than just the wind making a lot a noise as it goes along)

does the "lower self stop being? does it yield, actually break, does it lay low waiting for another opportunity to do what it does?

[Mal]

@Anton Rogachevski

Higher and lower self are illusions of the ego.

There is no higher and lower self. These are dualistic concepts created by the mind to try to orient itself after an experience..

However once back in the ego after an awakening, it's much easier to spot the seeker.  Every time the seeker is starved there is more room for what I'm sensing is the "soul" or some kind of high intuition or objectivity to penetrate and chip away at the subjectivity of the personality. 

"Enlightenment" I imagine is the end of the identity altogether and what is left is "what is" which is completely impersonal.  This is not a "self" at all, but the realization that there was no self to begin with.

[Emerald]

4 hours ago, governor said:

but,what happens with the "lower self" when it's seen as nothing more than an illusion? (it kinda seems like saying to a kid its just the wind -when inside your  just hoping like hell that it is nothing more than just the wind making a lot a noise as it goes along)

does the "lower self stop being? does it yield, actually break, does it lay low waiting for another opportunity to do what it does?

To this, I'll give an analogy. Imagine that you are a child who has an imaginary friend. Then you're told that your imaginary friend is fake, and you understand but somehow you still go on believing in that imaginary friend because that's all you really know. You've had the same imaginary friend your entire life and he eats all his meals with you, plays with you, goes to sleep with you, and even hangs out in the corner of the room while you're at school. He has needs that need to be met because you've created him to have those needs. So, you have a strong emotional attachment to your imaginary friend because you've never lived without him.

So, you ask me (in uncertainty and concern for your imaginary friend) what happens with the "imaginary friend" when it's seen as nothing more than an illusion? (It kinda seems like saying to a kid its just the wind - when inside you're just hoping like hell that it is nothing more than just the wind making a lot a noise as it goes along)

Does the "imaginary friend" stop being? Does it yield, actually break, does it lay low waiting for another opportunity to do what it does?

Like the imaginary friend, the lower self has never been real. It's only ever been you creating it, and when you stop creating it the imaginary friend will be as it has always been: nothing. All that will be left is you (the higher self) without the illusion and burden of taking care of your imaginary friend that you call "I".

Edited June 27, 2016 by Emerald Wilkins

[Azrael]

6 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

What happens to the higher and lower self once you are enlightened?

Do they remain seperate?

Interesting question!

The higher and the lower self are basically a lot of games you play with yourself and the world around you that be categorized as good and bad. For example, you trying to get enlightened, doing all this meditation and introspection is automatically something you label good in contrast with you binging on pizza and watching porn - for what you might beat yourself up a little bit ... but it is just so nice.

You can basically - and you do that - put your whole life in these two categories and you'll see that they fight with each other. White (your good side) always tries to win over black (your evil bad side). This is basically the story of your whole life - I'd say. And all the frustrations and worries and fears come up if white looses over black.

You can also notice if you really put some attention and interest to this that even the voice and thought patterns are really like two different persons inside of you. The dark side mostly gives you these unconscious, deep urges to do something while your higher self has all the arguments, rationalizations and what not. The dark side has all the bad horror thought stories and fuck-up neurosis. 

So what happens to all of this once you are enlightened or even if you have built up enough awareness to grasp this?

Well, from my personal experience of shining some awareness on this you see that it is first of all just a game that is playing inside of you. Secondly, you begin to feel sorry for your dark side because it really is just so dark because you always hated it, never gave it the love and appreciation you gave your higher self and it always protected you from this harsh life. It has to stand all these bad emotions for you.

If you see that, you open up. You still do low consciousness stuff (but with way more fun and love as you did before) and you still do your higher self stuff. You see that it is basically the same - but it just plays different roles.

You stop hanging yourself up for the stupid shit you do, because you see it is just the exact same shit as the highly intelligent things you do. You calm down from these fights.

[cetus]

@Emerald Wilkins Nicely said Emerald. Thinking about that, outside influence is constantly giving validation to that "imaginary friend".  I understand that is nothing but mind but so much of everyday society does live with an "imaginary friend". They all play together so to speak.  Maybe the reason we experience life as a 'lower self" is to transcend or awaken. Maybe the lower self is the seed that awakens like a flower blooming into the light of a divine process of unfolding.

 

Edited June 27, 2016 by cetus56

[30secs]

I think when your Enlightened , you can feel that there are still low and higher self modes but because your Awakened your very aware that "it is not you" or of course you become the watcher of the emotions, thoughts or whatever like a wind passing by(you know you have no control on it, or it will not stop) you just passed it through

[Emerald]

On 6/27/2016 at 3:16 PM, cetus56 said:

@Emerald Wilkins Nicely said Emerald. Thinking about that, outside influence is constantly giving validation to that "imaginary friend".  I understand that is nothing but mind but so much of everyday society does live with an "imaginary friend". They all play together so to speak.  Maybe the reason we experience life as a 'lower self" is to transcend or awaken. Maybe the lower self is the seed that awakens like a flower blooming into the light of a divine process of unfolding.

 

Thank you! It's a great point that the ego is a very naturally occurring collective illusion. So, it's difficult to see through it because everyone is so used to believing it and all of our habits and understandings are ingrained in that illusion.

[abrakamowse]

What about No-self?  I understand that Zen says there's no higher or lower self.  There's really no self.  Conciousness is just another phenomenon that is "perceived".  But there's no perceiver.

[Fishy]

4 minutes ago, abrakamowse said:

What about No-self?  I understand that Zen says there's no higher or lower self.  There's really no self.  Conciousness is just another phenomenon that is "perceived".  But there's no perceiver.

There is no self, but there is a perceiver which is consciousness itself. What is being perceived is a false self that believes to be the perceiver but is being perceived.

[abrakamowse]

@Fishy thanks Fishy.  I didn't understand that part. Lol

 

Thanks again.

[abrakamowse]

4 hours ago, Fishy said:

There is no self, but there is a perceiver which is consciousness itself. What is being perceived is a false self that believes to be the perceiver but is being perceived.

 

But consciousness itself is not a self, right? So it would be right to say there's no self.

Consciousness = Vijnana is the fifth of the Five Skandhas.  And The skandhas are collections of components that make up an individual.

[psychoslice]

For me they are both just concepts, there is just what IS, and anything else is again a concept, a label. 

[abrakamowse]

8 hours ago, psychoslice said:

For me they are both just concepts, there is just what IS, and anything else is again a concept, a label. 

True, the idea we have of a "self" is also a concept. We think a "self" is necessary to be "conscious" or to know something.

But, who knows?

Edited July 6, 2016 by abrakamowse

[abrakamowse]

On 6/27/2016 at 8:20 AM, Anton Rogachevski said:

What happens to the higher and lower self once you are enlightened?

Do they remain seperate?

They are not separated, they are the same. It's us who separated them. In my opinion they begin to align more and more until they become one only with reality. They merge from our perspective, but they were never separated.

[cetus]

@abrakamowse In what little experience I have, there seems to be always something that remains. Like a silent witness or something. Even when the no-self is being experienced, what knows that?  I question this every time it happens. It feels like there shouldn't be anything there, but yet there is.

[Mal]

28 minutes ago, abrakamowse said:

They are not separated, they are the same. It's us who separated them. In my opinion they begin to align more and more until they become one only with reality. They merge from our perspective, but they were never separated.

This is true.  The Oneness and the lower self are not two, they are one. Suffering only happens when consciousness identifies purely as a separate subject and loses awareness of the rest of its reality.  But "as boundless energy" the lower self is expanded and revealed as the perfect manifestation of the Divine. The Divine has no inherent meaning, that's why abiding as the Divine self is called Liberation. Liberation from enslavement to the seperate self's striving to create some kind of meaning out of nothing. 

[abrakamowse]

1 hour ago, cetus56 said:

@abrakamowse In what little experience I have, there seems to be always something that remains. Like a silent witness or something. Even when the no-self is being experienced, what knows that?  I question this every time it happens. It feels like there shouldn't be anything there, but yet there is.

It's difficult to talk about it, it's better to experience it hehehehe...

Our logic won't work there, we need to throw away the logic.