What is The Self?

[ryandesreu]

No, this is not a response on a Jeopardy game show. I'm being serious here. I dont experience any 'that which is aware' entity. There is only experience itself. Sensations, images, feelings, thoughts, tastes, smells, emotions, but no Self. Every time I think I experience Self I realize that that is just a thought. Any thoughts?

[Leo Gura]

There is no entity with any shape or form. There is only an empty space between your eyes.

Self is not a thought, this entire room you are seeing is Self. Don't go chasing some magical, imaginary self. Look at the whole room and recognize it as Self.

Self is just your entire visual field.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Leo Gura

[StarStruck]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

There is no entity with any shape or form. There is only an empty space between your eyes.

Self is not a thought, this entire room you are seeing is Self. Don't go chasing some magical, imaginary self. Look at the whole room and recognize it as Self.

Self is just your entire visual field.

If everything is you.. how can you sleep at night while there are bums around the corner of your house?

[Leo Gura]

23 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

If everything is you.. how can you sleep at night while there are bums around the corner of your house?

Cause they are imaginary.

[StarStruck]

18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Cause they are imaginary.

Fair enough

[Leo Gura]

@StarStruck You are welcome to not sleep.

Or go cuddle next to them. Maybe one of them with give you a hit of his meth pipe after you jerk him off.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Leo Gura

[UnbornTao]

On 10/25/2022 at 8:03 PM, Leo Gura said:

Self is just your entire visual field.

Isn't that perception? Why only the visual field?

You're holding self differently than I am. I'm using it in the sense of whatever you identify with, the conceptual "persona" we confuse our nature with. What you've come to know as you.

Uppercase Self is an absolute and isn't what I'm referring to. The distinctions I like to use here are self and you, the latter being your true nature, the former what you think of as you, with a personal history, agenda, personality, etc.

What if you don't identify yourself with perception?

Edited October 26, 2022 by UnbornTao

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Isn't that perception?

Doesn't matter what you call it. Self is EVERYTHING.

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Wouldn't it be better be called that?

It's not a matter of calling it one thing or another. It's about recognizing that perception IS Self. Like recognizing that a 6 is just an upside down 9.

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Why only the visual field?

Not only. All phenomena. But the visual field is most prominent for you.

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I suspect you're holding self differently than I am.

Haha. Of course. If you knew how to hold self properly you'd be dead.

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I'm using it in the sense of whatever you identify with.

Yes, but the issue is that you can change what you identify with.

Right now you identify with being a tree in the forest, and I'm telling you to realize that you are not a tree, you are the forest. Being a forest includes being a tree, but being a tree excludes being a forest.

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What if you don't identify yourself with perception? (Again, you're likely using Self in a different way than I).

Then you have a limited, finite notion of self. Which is the whole problem that spirituality aims to fix.

If you don't want to change your identity, then you shouldn't be doing spirituality. Go play some video games or something.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Gesundheit2]

@Leo Gura If you are the forest, how could socialization make you stupid?

Edited October 25, 2022 by Gesundheit2

[StarStruck]

59 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@StarStruck You are welcome to not sleep.

Or go cuddle next to them. Maybe one of them with give you a hit of his meth pipe after you jerk him off.

If she is a hot homeless girl I would use your fingering technique, why not.

[axiom]

@Leo Gura

Why do you call it Self?

The apprehension of the visual field as ‘Self’ seems inextricable from legacy / finite notions of self. 

Appearance is not a concept and seemingly needs no concept to be added to it (“Self”) to somehow elevate it to some higher level of is-ness.

Self seems to be an appearance within an appearance, a concept cooked up out of the ingredients of forms.

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Gesundheit2 said:

@Leo Gura If you are the forest, how could socialization make you stupid?

God works in mysterious ways

4 hours ago, StarStruck said:

If she is a hot homeless girl I would use your fingering technique, why not.

Hehe, keep dreaming. Ain't no hot girl going homeless.

4 hours ago, axiom said:

@Leo Gura

Why do you call it Self?

Cause it's you.

Hindu yogis call it Self too.

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The apprehension of the visual field as ‘Self’ seems inextricable from legacy / finite notions of self.

What? Why?

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Appearance is not a concept and seemingly needs no concept to be added to it (“Self”) to somehow elevate it to some higher level of is-ness.

I'm asking you to add concepts to it. You must AWAKEN to SELF.

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Self seems to be an appearance within an appearance, a concept cooked up out of the ingredients of forms.

Appearance is Absolute Truth tho. That's what you're overlooking.

You could also call it I, instead of Self. It is just You. You will never discovee anything in this work other than You. EVERYTHING is YOU. Wake up!

Edited October 26, 2022 by Leo Gura

[StarStruck]

@Leo Gura if it is all imagination I might manifest it 

[Gesundheit2]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

God works in mysterious ways

Not so much the ego, though.

[The0Self]

Self:

That for which there is no particular thing (that can be distinguished from a separate thing other than itself) that is, or is not, it.

[Leo Gura]

You guys make this so needlessly complicated when it's very simple:

You are a bubble of consciousness. This bubble is all that exists. Everything you see, hear, feel, taste, etc is this bubble. This entire bubble is YOU. The end.

Stop playing word-games and confusing yourself.

Take your ape-like finger, point it at any random thing, and whatever you're pointing at, call it Self/God/Love. And keep doing that. That's it.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Leo Gura

[axiom]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What? Why?

Because the sense of selfhood that permeates Self was forged in the same fires (and ignorance) as self. It seems to be the same sense, just elevated or magnified.

But it has been shown that the sense of selfhood is not needed for appearances to continue. For example, certain brain activity can be reduced or eliminated (meditation, brain injury, flow states, certain psychedelics) and as it’s activity lessens, selfhood approaches zero.

So it is clear that selfhood (whether self or Self) can be entirely extricated from appearance, but that this does not work the other way around because the sense of self is always dependently arising. That is, self - which could be likened to an ownership-taking subroutine, a sort of parasite - can only arise along with apparent objects of perception (all forms including “nothingness”, thoughts, etc).

Self has the capacity to be just as infinite as the forms it feels it owns, but it can also be extricated from appearance entirely. This does not seem to work the other way around, and perhaps that is because Self is only a concept, an interruptible process.

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by axiom

[Arthogaan]

44 minutes ago, axiom said:

Because the sense of selfhood that permeates Self was forged in the same fires (and ignorance) as self. It seems to be the same sense, just elevated or magnified.

But it has been shown that the sense of selfhood is not needed for appearances to continue. For example, certain brain activity can be reduced or eliminated (meditation, brain injury, flow states, certain psychedelics) and as it’s activity lessens, selfhood approaches zero.

So it is clear that selfhood (whether self or Self) can be entirely extricated from appearance,

It is just the words issue. You think that when Leo talks about Self that there is still some ego-selfhood left that is recontextualized and not fully let go. But it is only because it is what you believe that the word "Self" points to. 

But Leo can have the word "Self" attributed to the state where there is no sense of ego-selfhood left. The state when all concepts of boundaries and thing are eradicated you are only left with SELF in the meaning that I or Leo understands.

See how difficult the issue of words is. You attribute different feeling/insight/state to the word Self than Leo.

You could say the less self you have the more Self appears.

Self is 1-self. When ego-self approaches zero then SELF approaches 1. Self is one. Self is all that is left. No an ounce of an ego there.

[StarStruck]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You guys make this so needlessly complicated when it's very simple:

You are a bubble of consciousness. This bubble is all that exists. Everything you see, hear, feel, taste, etc is this bubble. This entire bubble is YOU. The end.

Stop playing word-games and confusing yourself.

Take your ape-like finger, point it at any random thing, and whatever you're pointing at, call it Self/God/Love. And keep doing that. That's it.

To be honest the words "the visual field" was confusing since god is both the manifest and unmanifest.

[axiom]

2 minutes ago, Arthogaan said:

But Leo can have the word "Self" attributed to the state where there is no sense of ego-selfhood left.

Yes, this is certainly possible. But that being the case, the word “pizza” seems no less apt.