Asking on behalf of an imaginary friend

[overthought]

Thanks so much, Paul. Everything you wrote is much appreciated.
I was going to dig into answering the questions today, but life circumstances seem to have denied my time off request. Good news, though: the X-rays showed my kid didn’t break anything, and she’s thrilled to have crutches in school tomorrow.
Thanks for the zoom link and schedule!
I’ll get to work on the questions ASAP.

Thanks again,
Jason

[CarefulDog88]

No problem Jason,
Good to here no major injuries.
When your ready.

[CarefulDog88]

Hi Jason,
I will be offline for a week, if you post and don't have any reply from me this is why.
:)

[overthought]

I hope you have a wonderful week away from the internet! Thanks for letting me know — thoughts would otherwise certainly have come up with some creative worries about what had happened to you. I’ll take this week as a chance to clarify and deepen as I answer the list of questions.

With so much gratitude,
Jason

[CarefulDog88]

Hi Jason,
I’m back, haha
Thanks for wishes.
When you are ready, feel free to post your answers
🌞

[overthought]

Welcome back!

Ok, here goes:

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

No. In direct experience, there is no distinct entity that is “me.”

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.

Looking in direct experience, thoughts arise without anyone having chosen them, but their content is based on the premise that there’s an “I” who is thinking them. This self-feeding loop appears to have built up an intricate story of a self, one who believes that direct experience is “my” direct experience, that sees “what is” as “what is happening to me.” The stream of arising thought is fixated on improving “my” experience, striving to control the unfolding story. Any investigation into anything seeming to be “me” or “mine” or “happening to me” or “experienced by me” reveals only sensations, thoughts, and the silence/space of just “This.”

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

Seeing this feels extremely encouraging, like finally being in the right place to do this work after years of wandering. Before investigating the pointings of this dialogue, there were insights and clues and philosophical explorations that are all now seen to have been based on the false presumption of “me” having/doing them.
There’s also a lot of resistance arising. Showing up to investigate and to correspond with you has been very challenging, with increasing indulgence in “distracting” activities. Thoughts have used these recent discoveries as justification — “There’s no me who’s procrastinating right now, and I can’t control what this body does, so we’ll just have to see how long I keep doing this unnecessary household project / trying out some new app / listening to political news.”

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

It really started while reading Gateless Gatecrashers, but then in our dialogue there was a noticeable push from the exercise of trying to sense a boundary between my hand and the table.

5) Describe decision & give examples from experience.

Decision is part of the story of self where that fictional self thinks about what it wants to attain.
I can experience this illusion right now: I’ll decide whether to keep working on answering these questions, or I could pause and come back to them later. I’ll choose to keep working.
Looking at the direct experience, was there an “I” entity who chose to have the above thoughts? No, in direct experience those thoughts just arose, unchosen. Any apparent deciding was just other unchosen thoughts about deciding.

Describe intention & give examples from experience.

Intention is a thought that assumes there’s a self who is thinking it, who is having this life experience and wants it to be different, to unfold in a certain way. The content of the thought is about the desired result and/or what they’ll do to make it happen.
An example is my intention to answer these questions. Thoughts arose that I want to communicate all of this to you, so an intention thought arose to put in this time and effort to write answers.

Describe free will & give examples from experience.

Free will is a belief, a collection of thoughts, about whether a self has any control over itself, its environment, and the story of its life circumstances.
There’s usually an unquestioned belief that “I” have free will throughout day-to-day life. But investigating any experience more closely, there’s no “I” to be found who’d be exercising an ability to intend and act.

Describe choice & give examples from experience.

Choice is the thought saying that a self has made a decision about how to exercise their free will in a given situation.
There are two oranges on the counter. I look them over and then grab the one on the left. It seems as if I’ve freely chosen which orange I’d prefer to eat. On closer investigation, some colors and shapes were seen, the content of some habitual thought stories was noticed, and something labeled as a body reached to grab something labeled as the orange on the left.

Describe control & give examples from experience.What makes things happen? How does it work?What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

In direct experience, things are just happening. There’s no me to be responsible. An example from experience would be this sentence being written. That just happened.

6) Anything to add?

It’s a little funny that writing out these answers makes them come across with much more certainty than they would if we were having a spoken conversation. Every line I wrote should be taken with an implied few minutes of clueless staring and/or incoherent babbling at the beginning.

[CarefulDog88]

HI Jason,
Your answers have been reviewed and no further questions, you have been confirmed.
I would just like to give some final things to consider:

This isn't the end of integration. It will continue until it doesn't.
That doubt may or may not put in an appearance. It often arrives as we come out of the 'honeymoon' phase.
Paying it forward by guiding is a great way to 'deepen'. I feel you would be very compassionate as a guide and similarly one of our other guides suggested the same. If you feel the impulse to guide let me know with a private message and I will help you with finding a mentor.

You will be invited to the Unleashed FB group. You are encouraged to use it to communicate with others that have recently 'gated'.

You are invited to any of 3 weekly zoom groups where you can work on anything that comes up or guide them who are there for that. (email vinceschubert@gmail.com)

There is one each Saturday at 9pm (Sydney time – AEDT)
One each Wednesday at 3pm (AEDT)
There is also one each Monday 6 am Sydney time – AEDT
Please note that it’s always the same time on the same link
 Arriving late and leaving early is fine.
You can convert time zones https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/;
Click https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86991485768?p ... 12Um5DQT09 to Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 869 9148 5768
Passcode: 083035

There is a forum (also called Unleashed) which isn't public, where you can work with a guide or even a couple of guides, on anything that comes up.

There will almost certainly be conditioned responses that will get triggered when circumstances align. This doesn't mean that you have lost anything (you can't lose what you always are). It's most likely that the triggers on them hadn't been pulled yet. The same seeing that took you through the gate will put these in perspective too.
The invitation is to walk lighter in the experiencing.

Finally Jason, thank you, I am extremely grateful to have walked this path with you and if there is anything you need please feel free to PM.

[CarefulDog88]

Hi Jason,
The website has been up and down over weekend so just checking in to see if you have been getting notifications.
🙏

[overthought]

Hi Paul!

Yes, for me the forum has been entirely down for the last couple of days. I got your “confirmed” message and wrote back to you that same day. In it, I offered (and do so again right now) my deep gratitude for all of your generosity as well as as your skill in giving just the right pointings at the right times.

When I came back to the forum the next morning, my message wasn’t there and I couldn’t post again! Soon I couldn’t load the forum at all, so I emailed the admin and asked them to send you a message, which I hope you received.

I will most definitely be joining the aftercare forums, and have already heard from Nerina about that. I may also reach out to you about guiding once I’ve been on this nonexistent side of the nonexistent gate for a bit more so-called “time.” Wow, language really stinks for non-duality.

So thank you once again, and then again and again. And I look forward to chatting more with you soon.
—Jason

[CarefulDog88]

Hi Jason,
good to hear and it was a pleasure walking with you, again thank you for doing the work and making the pointing easy.

Look forward to you guiding.