"You are an illusion or you don't exist"

[WokeBloke]

Can someone please explain to me what is trying to be conveyed when people say this. Thank you!

[VeganAwake]

 

[TheAvatarState]

@WokeBloke do you know what is being conveyed by the phrase, "You are an idea"?

[Tim R]

No, stop this mental masturbation. Nobody can explain this to you and no matter how many posts you keep making about this, you won't understand anything that way. You're wasting your time. Go meditate.

[TheAvatarState]

@Tim R who are to judge a "waste of time?"

Isn't time unable to be spent or accumulated or, therefore, wasted?

[Carl-Richard]

You are not your thoughts.

[lostingenosmaze]

@Tim R Pretty much. Doing "the work" is certainly not posting a topic every opportunity you're given to contemplate and asking to be spoonfed

[WokeBloke]

4 hours ago, TheAvatarState said:

@WokeBloke do you know what is being conveyed by the phrase, "You are an idea"?

Sounds like identification with a word. I produce ideas. I'm not an idea.

[WokeBloke]

4 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

You are not your thoughts.

No disagreement there. How does that have to do with being an illusion or not existing?

[softlyblossoming]

There is no real self. The one you directly experience now is illusory.

You don't exist. You think you do.

[WokeBloke]

Just now, softlyblossoming said:

There is no real self. The one you directly experience now is illusory.

You don't exist. You think you do.

If I don't exist then how can I think, see, hear, etc.?

If I did not exist then I wouldn't be able to write this post.

 

[softlyblossoming]

1 minute ago, WokeBloke said:

If I don't exist then how can I think, see, hear, etc.?

The real you can't (do any of those things because it's doesn't exist), but the illusory you (who you think you are) can.

Real (non-existent) you doesn't, illusion you appears to.

2 minutes ago, WokeBloke said:

If I did not exist then I wouldn't be able to write this post.

You didn't write this post, that's just another thought. You, the post and everything else are all just thoughts happening in the present moment.

[WokeBloke]

5 minutes ago, softlyblossoming said:

The real you can't (do any of those things because it's doesn't exist), but the illusory you (who you think you are) can.

Real (non-existent) you doesn't, illusion you appears to.

You didn't write this post, that's just another thought. You, the post and everything else are all just thoughts happening in the present moment.

How can I form a conceptual me without a real me?

What wrote this post then?

 

 

[softlyblossoming]

27 minutes ago, WokeBloke said:

How can I form a conceptual me without a real me?

What wrote this post then?

There's a thought that's saying you wrote the post, but it's just a thought about a past. Thoughts always arise in the present moment, even thoughts about a future and past.

Interestingly, our sense of identity only exists in our thoughts. By paying close attention, we can notice that our thoughts are always changing, and therefore can conclude that there's no fixed/unchanging self.

A thought is just a thought, but have to look at it really literally/existentially to see this.

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by softlyblossoming
expanded

[WokeBloke]

@softlyblossoming

What wrote this post in your view? You do realize each post needs to be typed out. If you tell me the post was not written and that's just a thought then you're just misusing language. 

Of course you will have to now write a post to respond to me and you might claim that you didn't write it even though you are.

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by WokeBloke

[softlyblossoming]

I'm not enlightened, so I feel like I wrote it. However, from a non-dual perspective, it was never written. We can reference the past to survive as humans, but the past (literally/existentially) is just a thought. When there's no thoughts, there's just the present moment, because things only happen in the present moment. Furthermore, because the past only exists when there are thoughts about it, there's no real/fixed/unchanging past.

[VeganAwake]

@WokeBloke

There is a physical body there typing and reading but it's EMPTY. 

There isn't a real individual named wokebloke within that body. 

If that body bumps its head hard enough, the sense of being the individual wokebloke can be lost.

Wokebloke is like a web or bundle of memories and assumptions being identified with over & over again as "ME".....like an endless perpetuating illusion!

 

 

[WelcometoReality]

1 hour ago, WokeBloke said:

Sounds like identification with a word. I produce ideas. I'm not an idea.

So what are what are you?

[softlyblossoming]

Look and see for yourself how all of the things that happened and are happening are thoughts, and how thoughts never stand still. Look in the same way to see that your self is not a physical body or mind, but thoughts about a physical body and mind. Then try to notice that the whole world you live in is not made of real things in a real world, but thoughts about real things in a real world. Next, notice that anything you think is real is yet another thought, and so this continues with all 'real things' in an infinite recursion. It's just thoughts in the only present moment, all the way down.

Isn't it great how much more control over our life this new perspective brings us, @WokeBloke?

[Danioover9000]

   "You are an illusion, or you don't exist". Also, you are not real.

    Let's flip the subjects

   "I am an illusion, or I don't exist." Which one feels right to you, being an illusion, or being nothing?

   Best guess, an illusion is made from something, and not existence isn't something, but nothing. So another way to word it is the following:

   "You are a something, or you are nothing".