Hi Nessie,
This is all so crucuial you really need to look carefully now....
When you say, "but here I am", what is it exactly that is here?
Me experiencing myself as being a person, even though I know it isn’t true.
So you know, (by having seen to some degree the narrative power of thought), that 'a person' isn't a solid real entity but rather a fictional interpretation of what is happening?
So to be concrete - as you sit at your computer now and write a reply you can feel beingness,see the keyboard, hear clicking, see fingers move and thoughts arise (etc) but is there anything else?
Or is there 'just this'?
There is only this.
So which is it?
Is there 'just this' - often including Nessie thoughts about a Nessie, or is there a real continuous separate self?
Go outside and look at a tree. Is life just 'treeing' or is there a seperate tree 'self' present 'choosing' e.g. which way to grow it's branches? how much fruit to produce this autumn? etc, etc.
Now looking back. Could it be that life is simply 'Nessieing', or are you really a seperate entity making it all happen? Somehow 'outside' life, ordering, and controlling it?
Remember there will always be background hum of beingness, or aliveness.
Nessie seems to come and go, sometimes I am fully identified with it, sometimes I am not, but I always am.
Very much so! Life flows on with a sense of being or aliveness and sometimes the character is present and being re-enforced (or whatever), but at other times it is absent or forgotten.
Does that not again suggest to you that it is an add on? An ongoing interpretation? Exactly how real is that then? You could say there is a self but it is more like father christmas or catwoman. There is a character there but fictional, a story, nebulous and hollow. (Just like a dream character at night).
Do you realise how significant it is that you see that there are gaps in the on-going Nessie character?
This is not the accepted view of personhood! This is not what the folks think that you will weave around in the supernarket today.....
What you are seeing is deeply significant if you could allow it to sink in.....
Could it be that life is just happenning? That we are very complex entities that to help us make sense of our experience we cast ourselves as the central character in an on-going drama, claiming experience as 'our experience' and with our almost continuous self referencing thought maintain that fictional self sense?
If you close your eyes and just 'be' does it really feel like a reference point?
Or just a vibrant, alive, knowingness?
Where is Nessie if you just 'be'?
No, it doesn’t feel like anything, it just is, but when the question arises ‘What is this?’ the answer comes, ‘this is an experience being experienced by you / me’. If there is no enquiry, it just happens, when there is enquiry, then the enquirer is.
So the 'enquirer' isn't a separate being called Nessie.......simply just another thought', just another wisp of cloud, nothingness taking form and melting back to nothingness....
This is a wonderful conversation. Keep looking and keep noticing those Nessie free gaps. Often it is as simple as simply noticing that the hand has brought the cup to your mouth again for another sip of tea, and you realise you didn't ask it to....
Or you get up to go to the loo before 'you' 'made the decision' to do so......Or you scratch your nose and realise there was no command - it just happpened.
Have fun playing cat and mouse.....or being a detective.....or forensic scientist.
Since it is all fiction anyway choose whichever role would be most fun!
There is a lot in these recent exchanges. Please feel free to do whatever is best. I f you want to pick one of the above and work with it do that. If it helps to write several times a day do that and I will do my best to respond so there aren't long gaps.
All best wishes,
Michael
