I tried to illustrate the illusion of self, is it right?

[RMQualtrough]

 

The top two images is when a person views reality via the illusion of the notion of a "self" or ego. The cycle of death and rebirth exists if you identify with the ego, just like how you literally believed you were a music track, you would think you die when that track ends and the next one begins.

The bottom image is my attempt at demonstrating the reality of the situation. The cycle of death and rebirth is "escaped" because you understand there is no you which ever existed to live or die, and instead there is only reality ALONE, which is infinite and undivided. Self illuminating in the way that awareness knows awareness. It stands alone by itself. When you hear a sound, the sound exists but is not heard by anybody, there's no you present. The sound rings out self luminous as a modulation of awareness itself.

[ChrisZoZo]

@RMQualtrough I am a bit confused on it.

Are you stating a quote that you would say after rebirth from death? (in the second image)

If not then both the second and third are just the third. 

 

[WokeBloke]

But if you are this alone awareness that you speak of then you actually do exist. It's just that there is no one else besides you.

Only you are aware.

Edited February 6, 2022 by WokeBloke

[RMQualtrough]

6 minutes ago, ChrisZoZo said:

@RMQualtrough I am a bit confused on it.

Are you stating a quote that you would say after rebirth from death? (in the second image)

If not then both the second and third are just the third. 

 

Uhm no not that my ego is reborn, but that reality continues after my death via other egos etc.

Just like how a music track ends and another one begins. If you identified the self as a music track, you die when that single track ends. But when a track ends music continues to happen. It's just a different track.

But you can also understand that there never was a self at all, there is ONLY the appearing sunset by itself. No "you" viewing it. That is what I mean in the bottom photo. That the you part of the entire equation is simply not present at all. There is just the sunset which is self luminous as awareness itself.

[Salvijus]

4 hours ago, RMQualtrough said:

But you can also understand that there never was a self at all, there is ONLY the appearing sunset by itself. No "you" viewing it. That is what I mean in the bottom photo. That the you part of the entire equation is simply not present at all. There is just the sunset which is self luminous as awareness itself.

I would say there are 3 components.

The experience, the ego interpreting the experience, and awareness that is aware of both the experience and ego's interpretation of experience.

To say that there is no personal "you" is not entirely fair. In my understanding a personal self is very much there. Many spiritual traditions spend years of practice to dissolve the ego. Ego is not like a unicorn that is just a concept and doesnt exists. Ego is not like that, ego has it's own tangable reality, it can be dense or tranparant.

Buddhist's are not spending years in meditation trying to dissolve a unicon-like concept. They're are dissolving something real, something almost physical. And that physical entity is what continues after music track ends. The same music track comtinues if it has not been dissolved.

Of course awareness is beyond ego. Awareness has nothing to do with anything. But denying the existence of personal self/ego is not fair, and not even true, i would say.

Something to think about.

Edited February 6, 2022 by Salvijus

[Tyler Durden]

@RMQualtrough But third image will only exist if you keep your imaginary eyes opened. If you close them, it will disappear.

[The0Self]

23 hours ago, RMQualtrough said:

Nice 

Except, paradoxically, the I which never existed doesn't disappear -- in the end precisely just because, as you say, it never existed anyway. And also... the sunset is not knowable, nor is it separate from the unknowable absolute timeless infinite totality... which is all there is -- i.e. without other (alone, as you say).

But it essentially has nothing to do with death -- in this context there is no death, there's only everything. Just clarifying in case you're reifying a sunset separate from a human being -- the human and the sunset are not two i.e. there is no reality apart from perception.

Infinite cannot know finite, and all there is is infinite.

Edited February 7, 2022 by The0Self

[TRUTHWITHCAPITALT]

@Salvijus it is hard to swallow the nothingness of ego for the impermanent  biological organism. It can come up with ingenious defense mechanism to defend its survival and existence.

It is like an actor arguing with the director that the the movie should not end. 

 

[RMQualtrough]

3 hours ago, The0Self said:

Nice 

Except, paradoxically, the I which never existed doesn't disappear -- in the end precisely just because, as you say, it never existed anyway. And also... the sunset is not knowable, nor is it separate from the unknowable absolute timeless infinite totality... which is all there is -- i.e. without other (alone, as you say).

But it essentially has nothing to do with death -- in this context there is no death, there's only everything. Just clarifying in case you're reifying a sunset separate from a human being -- the human and the sunset are not two i.e. there is no reality apart from perception.

Infinite cannot know finite, and all there is is infinite.

What I was attempting to do with the before and after death thing, is show that the ego can change completely yet the reality remains.

Death would just be like a nametag rolling over and a new ego being built from scratch. If a person identifies with an ego self, then when that falls away as all impermanent things do, there is a "cycle" of death and birth because egos are constantly ending and beginning.

And then at the bottom I am trying to show what I think may be happening, which is that, basically, you were never a being viewing the world, but the viewed world itself which is known unto itself without observation. And that is what was ACTUALLY always happening.

[RMQualtrough]

2 hours ago, TRUTHWITHCAPITALT said:

@Salvijus it is hard to swallow the nothingness of ego for the impermanent  biological organism. It can come up with ingenious defense mechanism to defend its survival and existence.

It is like an actor arguing with the director that the the movie should not end. 

There is a difference between the nothingness of ego which I have certainly experienced, and what I am pondering about whether even the viewpoint which is "the void" can be eliminated.

When I became void and nothing, there was still a viewpoint. I was nothing such that my ego became an appearance in front of me just like a vision was, ALL forms were in fact. But I was this nothingness.

And I wonder if maybe I am not even a "nothingness" observing objects which includes my self, but literally just the observed objects which are sort of observing themselves and entirely alone in the same way the Sun illuminates itself. No God or I or self or any of this.

[The0Self]

55 minutes ago, RMQualtrough said:

And that is what was ACTUALLY always happening.

The actual appearance of what happens is precisely what is not actually happening. What that seems to arise out of, but isn’t actually separate from, is the wholeness which can’t be spoken but one could say is what’s actually happening because it’s the only reality.