The Self-Other Dichotomy

[Iksander]

I had just now, a glimpse of awareness into the possible nature of non-duality. I have been in great pain over the last few days, replaying different situations that hurt me over and over in my mind in order to learn from them, exploring them as deeply as I can. 

 

After entertaining a few different perspectives and coming up with solutions, I became open to the possibility that I created all of the problems, including the people who "wronged" me. When I analyze where people have hurt me I see that I would've also hurt another the same way. Is it possible that I am creating experiences unconsciously so that I may wake myself up? That those people in my life are actually me, and I them? That the inner world and the outer world, perceived in my mind as separate, are actually one and the same?

[Mason Riggle]

@Iksander yep. 

Consider, is your hand 'part of you' or 'external to you'?  Both, yes?  If the 'you' who own's 'your hand' or is aware of 'your hand' is not identical to 'your hand', then who are you?  If 'your hand' is part of 'you'.. then 'your neighbor' is just as much a part of you. 

"Am I doing all of this, or is all of this doing me?" - Alan Watts

[Iksander]

@Mason Riggle This exercise makes me realize that 'I' am awareness 

[Mason Riggle]

@Iksander

"I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware." - Alan Watts. 

[Inliytened1]

14 minutes ago, Iksander said:

I became open to the possibility that I created all of the problems, including the people who "wronged" me. When I analyze where people have hurt me I see that I would've also hurt another the same way. Is it possible that I am creating experiences unconsciously so that I may wake myself up? That those people in my life are actually me, and I them? That the inner world and the outer world, perceived in my mind as separate, are actually one and the same?

God/You are dreaming up all of reality.   To become directly conscious of it is to awaken from the dream.

[Iksander]

Then, there's nothing to be gained or lost here, isn't it? Chasing things in the material world becomes a waste of time.  The question becomes how deeply this experience of life can be enjoyed

[Inliytened1]

4 minutes ago, Iksander said:

Then, there's nothing to be gained or lost here, isn't it? Chasing things in the material world becomes a waste of time.  The question becomes how deeply this experience of life can be enjoyed

Indeed..It's just a game.  You can still chase things in a video game - it's actually more entertaining because you know it's a game but you can still allow yourself to get immersed in the game.   That said - be careful not to take what is being said as a belief.  Become directly conscious of it for yourself.  

[Iksander]

@Inliytened1 I see that the only way to move in the right direction is to be directly conscious now. For example being 'unattached' as a mental strategy is not the same of being directly conscious of yourself, therefore becoming emotionally independent through awareness of what is, or Truth.

[Mason Riggle]

@Iksander It's always now. 

There is no 'independent of'.. which implies something separate from something else. 

This eternal moment (the past doesn't exist anywhere other than this moment, nor does the future) is all there is, and you're it. I'm it. There's nothing separate from 'everything'. 

You are already effortlessly being yourself, and any attempt to do otherwise is just more you being yourself. 

There is one path, and you're already on it. 

[Iksander]

@Mason Riggle Ah, I don't mean independent like this.. I have trouble using words

[Mason Riggle]

?

[Breakingthewall]

3 hours ago, Iksander said:

I see that the only way to move in the right direction is to be directly conscious now.

Not only that. you have to eliminate one element from the equation: the self. but look at the paradox: "you have to eliminate" you have. you cannot eliminate yourself. you can only understand yourself as deeply as you can, and at some point ... magic, you will have disappeared

[Iksander]

@Breakingthewall

[Leo Gura]

Be careful how you define "you". The ego you is not creating other people.

But the God You is.

Simply put: Self = other

But that Self is the Universal-Self, not the little human self.

[Mason Riggle]

@Breakingthewall yep. The ego comes and goes like whirlpools in a river. 

And like the ego, whirlpools don't exist separate from 'what the river is doing'.. You can't take a whirlpool out of a river and show it to me. 

Whirlpools appear as patterns in rivers, and don't actually 'do' anything other than be how they are, when they are, if they are. 

Sure a whirlpool makes bubbles, and swirls around, and erodes the riverbed, and sucks things in.. all kinds of things a whirlpool does.. but is it really DOING those things? If it was aware that it was, and produced thoughts instead of bubbles, one thought that might bubble up is 'I'm doing this..' I am responsible for all these things I do.. Me, the whirlpool. 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2021 by Mason Riggle