Separate Self Is Impossible And This Is How You Can See It Too

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SEPARATE SELF IS IMPOSSIBLE — and in this raw, unscripted satsang you’ll see why. We dismantle the final myth of awakening: the idea there’s someone here who must awaken. Drop the seeker, the doer and the thinker, and watch presence, joy and creative flow ignite on their own. Press play and let the insight land in real time!

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http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

Transcript

Welcome to the show! This is episode 96 the separate self is impossible. this is how you can see it too. 
My name is Ilona Ciunaite. I am a guide, an author, and a co-creator of the Liberation Unleashed community. If you are interested in all things awakening, this podcast is for you. Over the past 13 years, I’ve been guiding and supporting seekers on their journeys to discover inner peace and freedom.

In this podcast, I dive deep into the heart of awakening. Together with my guests, we explore the pivotal moments that spark transformation, what life looks like before and after the shift, and how to navigate the challenges and beauty of living an awakened life.

Tired of meditating, retreat-hopping, and self-help bingeing yet still not “there”?
In this **75-minute deep-dive** we expose the Separation Illusion that keeps seekers trapped, bust the myth of a person who can “wake up,” and guide you to **2 Exit Doors** that open straight into effortless Presence. listen to the end for live Q and A where common road-blocks are dissolved on the spot.
whole awakening idea sometimes is the very thing that is in the way of

awakening the idea of awakening cause truly there is nothing that awakens it's not like something wasn't here and suddenly appears it's it's seeing that there's nothing there that disappears it's kind of funny in a way but that the whole idea and seeking of some kind of experience an aha moment or something that needs to happen very often is the last frontier very often it's the most difficult thing to let go just imagine if you are seeking for 50 years or something and that that thing has been staring in the face all these years how much investment is in that idea of awakening you know if you count all the teachers all the books all the retreats and cruise ships and whatever was on the way to get to this silent presence that it's always been

here it's exhausting

so there is nothing and no one now awakens there's no awakening there's nobody here to

awaken and if that's a frustrating message if this is like hitting the nerve let's talk let's talk

i can hear all the butts you know but this and that said so nadia Ashanti said that and Newman Parsons or whoever else said that

yeah they can say whatever they want to say

it's like trying to get with a mind something that is beyond mind it's not possible it cannot be done and that which is beyond mind is not asleep and it's not awakening it's not waking up it's never been i don't know this present awareness this presence that is already here who are

you and let's explore that you are here with this question

of how to awaken when is it going to happen what can I do please unmute your microphone and let's explore together

uh hello hello hey hey everyone um yeah my name is um Stephen and um I've been trying to like go to like various meetup groups trying to meet like likeminded people actually believe in the same um belief um uh like for example I went to meetup.com but um it's kind of hit or miss like in terms of like what what what you encounter and it's mostly misses actually entirely misses oh

Ya uhhuh yeah the way I came about your your um group was that I googled uh um self-illusion and quotes and uh and also meetup and you were the second link on on the Google page so that's how I came about uh this meeting but um but yeah but in terms of the the illusion of the self I'm already there i realized that the self is an illusion and um just to summarize what that is that the whole concept of the self is the belief that there's a thinker of thoughts that there's actually a doer of actions that there's a u an experiencer in addition to the experience but in reality there's just simply just experience that's all there really is and um and and another u another thought there is that uh uh this is a whole uh concept of sub subject object which is like a duality type of concept where like I'm the

subject and the object that's all I have very welcome nice to meet you very nice to meet you thank Thank you thank you for sharing yeah this these meetings are about I had to see that in your own experience rather than just sharing ideas about this what's in actuality how does it work

okay yeah one of the things I've been thinking about like know the whole concept of self uh is is is a really strong illusion right the whole illusion of the self and I think that um what actually drives that I would say primarily drives that is memories because if you like really think about memories memories is something which is generated by the brain it it's something that's part of our our biology but if you think of like um people

out where they have these medical conditions where um where unfortunately they have like more term memory like like there's a gentleman in UK for example like he was in an accident not an accident but he actually had like a a viral infection where he had a short-term memory of like about say 5 seconds or so but that got me thinking like the whole concept itself really generated because of memories because if you really think of um say a person without memory Where's that whole concept of the self like how does that happen if a person doesn't have any memories

i don't know

yeah it's an interesting

question i don't know once once we all lose memory we can discuss this i don't see well you you could actually think of it like like a thought experiment right like like for example um say a person for example like um you know they went to a zoo right let's say 12:00 p.m and they're they're experiencing like animals watching looking at the zoo and then at 3:00 p.m they go to the grocery store and at 6:00 p.m they that that person um takes a walk in the park and at 9:00 p.m they they're uh they're at a museum looking at at at paintings for example right so so if you look at that person and just think about that person in an abstract way where that person doesn't have any memory whatsoever that person is having an experience through time right having an experience at 12:00 at 3 p.m at at at 6 p.m and 9:00 p.m but but the whole concept of the self um really can't be generated right because the

there because you kind of this or I did that through time to actually have that feeling that that um that there's a me who's doing that right so that that's the bigger it's more than that just just the memory yeah it's a little bit more than that but yeah memory is part of it sure because the the mind movie is about me having an experience and me having an experience in the past and me will have experience in the future

so so this this me is imagined

and there is some kind of sense of

continuity yes we remember that we've been told that we are the separate self and that's part of the problem because having memory and thinking that I'm a separate self is kind of different thing the body has memory we remember stuff but this idea of self or me is is learned and we remember that

okay thank you Stephen i think the feelings also have some continuity feelings yeah and the there is some sort of some sort of a memory type thing in the field because they have continuity and you get a sense of stress self through the feelings also even if you had some sort of disease which where you lost all your memories you still seem to have a self because of the feelings which is why the in the previous times the mystics used to talk about now getting rid of the negative

feelings because that is supposed to be the veil in the old days that was supposed to be the veil you know the feelings as long as you did not have negative feelings you were more likely to see whatever the face of God metaphorically and uh and the these days they talk mostly about no the moment of no self and but uh I haven't heard of a teacher or guru who was full of hate and anger and know jealousy and whatever they always you know pretty much through their extreme negative feelings very light feelings they have so it seems that indirectly or directly negative feelings are related to inversely related to uh being able to you know have no self it is rooted in feelings as well besides memory yes it kind of has to go the system has to go through your purification to become pure purer and if you look at this that when there is no resistance there's no push and pull to what is happening there is no me there's no self there's nothing no one here to resist anything that feeling of resistance is often it's identified to be me I yeah and when there is no resistance there is just experience happening flowing freely as it's always Okay as long as there are strong feelings negative feelings it's very hard to not have uh to have a no self sort of a state because that drags you back into the body and the and the self yeah but people have glimpses matter in which stage they are people have glimpses so it's not like uh it cannot be seen it can be seen but it doesn't stick because that purification process has to complete itself but at least it gives some kind of idea of uh what's possible and usually that glimpse is like everything was okay good flowing freely there's nobody here thinking Yeah yeah and then back to normal but that's kind of initiation maybe into the work to clear clear the mind and emotions but there used to be a lot of emphasis previously in the 200 years 500 years ago on getting rid of the impurities whereas that emphasis has shifted now and it's almost like nothing matters just try to get that saturator experience and everything will be all right but you will have to go through the purification in one way or another through Sati you go through it in a different way but you still go through it you still have to become aware of your feelings and awareness is something which sort of dissipates them

that's right Eric

thank you thank you the these days there are a lot of talks about trauma being human on the planet Earth is traumatizing

yeah so so the way that uh I came about through the concept of no self is um well well first of all was meditation mindfulness meditation it's it's a practice that I do um every day uh in addition to this uh Sam Harris I'm not sure if anybody's listened to Sam Harris but he talks about uh no self a lot uh and he goes into detail as the reason why uh the stealth doesn't exist so I'm curious has anyone ever listened to Sam Harris at all yeah I have I don't think he's really there but yeah I have listened to it

okay maybe somebody would like to explore that in your own experience

hey George yes i'd like to explore in my own experience you and I have spoken before yes and it's really clear to me intellectually there's no self but I'm still stuck in that it feels like there's a separate self here i don't know what else can be done how about allowing that feeling to be here too and that feeling is not a separate self it's just a feeling

okay just allow that feeling

all right how do you know that feeling is a separate self now that's a very good question i can't really identify the feeling like I can't say "Oh I can feel it in my left knee." Mhm so it's not a feeling in that sense maybe I'm misusing the word feeling there's a seeming there seems to be a separate self that is to say let me be more specific i still think that I'm the doer even though I know intellectually not the case it feels it seems I'm the doer um I know I don't generate my thoughts but when these thoughts come I often just follow them as if they're my thoughts so I have all these symptoms of a separate self what is the separate self well I would say the separate self is a self that is separate that is it's independent it's independent of the rest of the world like I look separate self it looks like there's a me over here looking out at the world it's separate in that sense it's separate in the sense that it can do things what What is this separate self doing now i'm sorry say that again what is this separate self doing now

talking to you are you sure you know I'm not sure

so okay there is there is talking going on right no wait there's talking going on yes but I do notice that when I speak I don't prepare it so there it doesn't to be a separate self in my speech okay so what does the separate do separate self do well it chooses oh okay hold on chooses all right how does how does it choose right now choose something right now how does that work

okay we've done this before i'm going to choose to lift my right hand uhhuh how did that happen

well the way it happened is you asked me to make a choice and I chose to write to raise my right hand now the interesting question is how actually did that choice arise right was it a thought yes I think so i don't know let me try it again all right like choose to lift right or left choose to lift right or left either right or left how did that happen well I decided I chose right last time so I'm going to choose left this time

it seemed that that was a thought

how did that happen at which point the dur came in at which point the separate self came in and and did that lifting or thinking or choosing

i can't answer your question it seems that there's a that I actually made a choice

how about choice happened

choice happened asking good questions how did that choice

happen i guess my only honest answer is I don't know h so maybe there is no separate self and just that separate self is being like glued to every experience because there is an assumption that it's

possible it's impossible like like you said that there is separate self outside from the whole from the life from everything how is that even possible

well okay i don't mean literally that it's separate it's separate from everything in the sense

that it can well as I say it can independently choose it can independently act you cannot um you can only choose when there is a situation then choice is needed i know that but I just feel when I talk to you now I can sort of get clear on that but later on the day I'm going to go out there and make choices and think that I'm choosing i'm going to have thoughts and I'm going to think that I'm thinking them okay what okay let me show you something very very simple basic but maybe it will help okay okay while we've been talking here have you been breathing certainly I've been breathing yeah you have okay can you notice breathing now notice breathing okay and as you are noticing it are you doing it or is it happening no it's it's just happening mhm so as you're noticing breathing does it change

well as I notice the breathing the breathing can change in other words I I don't I don't know what the breathing was like before I noticed it but I now am noticing it mhm did you become a breather no but now you can say I am breathing so that means I is breathing and I is the breather

okay so in the normal course of events there's breathing that just occurs mhm on the other hand I can choose take a deep breath i can choose to hold my breath for five seconds mhm as you are aware of it it may change

say that again please as you become aware of it it may change what may change the breathing the pattern yes as I become aware of it it may change yes now as it changes do you own it i mean do you become a breather are you doing it no if I'm just aware of my breathing as you said it's clear to me that I I I'm not that it's just happening right so is everything else but when we become aware of something oh there is this sensation that means it's a separate self it's

impossible everything is happening nothing becomes anything there's no separate self to start breathing or start feeling or start anything could I piggy back off of your uh breathing i'm sorry Stephen hold on a second in these meetings we don't interrupt um when I'm working when I'm talking to somebody we just wait everyone and then we can share after okay should I raise my hand like uh do the hand raise thing on Zoom um not necessarily but when it's more people maybe it's a good idea but please keep your microphones muted and until we speak it's kind of this kind of meeting okay thank you sorry that's okay all right George here we are back here back on my Yeah so where were we that the separate self is impossible

how can anything be separate from everything how can anything be separate from any everything well things are separate like what

my computer is separate from my phone okay so basically you're looking at the picture at the color and shape which is called computer and the color and the shape that is called phone and they are seem different forms yes shapes and forms and colors but they are not separate from color or from awareness or from seeing it that is correct yes they if I see them if I view them in terms of just seeing then you're right they're just colors there but what I'm saying is that in my I don't have use the word experience but during the course of the day it seems to me that my computer and my phone are separate I am separate from both of those right that's the that's the way it seems to be yes that's the But look at this what is that looks like a ring right can you say it's gold also like I don't know what it's made of i can't say it's yellowish yeah he'll go can you say it's a ring and it's gold if you say it's gold I'll believe you it's gold okay yeah let's see so it's a ring and gold and you can see both right you can see both you can see the form and the name for the form is ring you can see the essence which is gold and the gold is made into the shape of a ring and the ring is just a name for the for the form of gold right [Music] so during the day you can say okay the computer is separate from the phone and this body is not connected to it but it's all made of

what this I don't know not all made of gold I'd be very wealthy if my computer were made of gold what's the essence Yeah

that's what I'm missing the computer and the phone are separate i mean if I if I view them as mere

appearances as if I say well these are just appearances visual appearances color whatever then they're just the same and that they're both appearances but they don't show up to me that way they show up to me as if there's a real computer out there and a real phone out there and they're separate they're not separate from experience they're not separate

from awareness

well that's the essence here's the problem yes I understand that but that seems very conceptual they're not separate from awareness what the hell yes can you know of something without knowing of it

oh I can't know something without knowing it so knowing is something that is constant awareness just I like using word knowing because it's not a noun yes okay yes you're right okay okay i got it now yes okay okay so now now I get Yes awareness knowing of it yes okay i'm with you now so knowing is the essence nothing is separate from the whole that means there's everything nothing is separate from the whole in the sense that they're both known so my computer and my phone are both known yes in that sense they're both in what you call awareness i grant that and who knows it who knows it that's the That's the key who knows it it seems there's an eye who knows it right let's find out let's find out is the eye that knows it or there's just knowing no okay i can I can understand and again theoretically I can understand there's just knowing theoretically I can understand that there's no eye hold on hold on just a second experientially what's going on

experientially what is that knowing in your experience okay so in my experience there are five senses or six senses if you include thinking mhm so in my experience right now there's you know the um that's what's going on i mean I can describe all the things I can see okay do you see my hand moving well yes well they know that my hand is moving well I don't know that it seems apparent yes yes look that way right do you see another hand here yes do you know that there are moving something is moving on your screen do you know that yes but but there are two hands yes that's that's fine but you know that there is something moving well I mean I don't know all the illusion but yes yes okay let's not look into illusion look look in actuality there is knowing of movement yes there's knowing of movement going on yes yes do you know that you know yes that's

it do you know that you know that's

it but I don't want to take up more time there's a lot of people here but that's not it i mean three minutes from now I'm going to be back where I was yes well the experiencing is the experience is continue but the knowing is always here okay now also my statement that what's going to happen three minutes from now is absurd i don't know what's going to happen three minutes from now so that statement I have no idea okay let me just conclude by saying thank you i don't know whether we've really made some impact here or not i just don't know okay that's good to be here just acknowledge that but you know that you exist that's it oh I certainly know that I exist there's existence here there's no doubt about that there is existence yes and nothing is separate from that that's it yes that's where I have to look nothing is separate from that but again it seems that there seems that pardon the knowing part knowing there's only

knowing everything exists in knowing mhm and you know that you are

adopted we're talking about knowing i'm saying I don't know i rely on my mind too much that's good to notice because the mind cannot figure this out you cannot get to this seeing by thinking you have to see yes I know that and you already see it it's just the mind says "I don't see it i don't get it i I I" And it creates that kind of idea that there's something there that someone here that is separate that needs to see something that's why I said the awakening is a joke because there's nobody there to see anything there's just this experience and there's knowing of it direct knowing of it maybe as a technique I don't know use a word what I should do is temporarily give up the strife the striving for awakening here we go perhaps just see if I can experience things as they are

just I know I should end the sentence there see if I can just be with things as they are and forget about striving for awakening uh I don't know sounds like fun sounds like fun if I could really accept things as they are the game would be over because my ultimate goal is just of mind mhm so okay I've taken up I've taken up too much time thank you Elona thank you George it's exactly right time there's nothing wrong ever no you're right there's nothing wrong it's just what it is that's what it is you're welcome thank you

it's always fun to talk to you George

is it okay now if I say something yes yes yeah yeah yeah so just to piggy back off of the um the breathe in um scenario that you provided to George this is actually a question to George is that is that now that I'm mentioning breathing George right you notice that you're breathing right now and you feel that you're in control of it you could hold your breath or you could breathe exhale like five times if you want to so you actually have this control but but what happened before before I actually said that hey are you noticing your breath right now was was your breath or breathing on autopilot and then all of a sudden when I said that hey listen um are you noticing your breath right now did something switch in your brain which switched from autopilot to manual control where now you're in manual control of your breath yes that's exactly so yes well yeah so so so when you go to sleep your breathing is on autopilot but when you wake up your breathing is on still on autopilot but as soon as somebody says "Hey George um notice your breath." That switches from autopilot to manual control yes but I mean but yes and no someone could say um notice your breath and I don't have to um change it in any way i can't just notice it but is it you who changes that or is it something in your brain that's makes that switch and I have no idea

yes so so um so the reason I'm asking that question is because so so so with the whole illusion of the self I'm not sure if um is this been discussed and uh on this uh meeting but the other side of the illusion of the self is the illusion of free will and they're both really interconnected right because everybody believes that they that they they have free will but but the reality here is that once you come to the realization that the self is an illusion the other side of that coin It's like two sides of the same coin is the illusion of free will yeah yeah so that whole concept that you have that that that all right do you know what that Stephen just told me to hey he notice my breath and and I'm noticing my breath right now and and that that means that now I'm in control of it right well that's the free will aspect of it um where you think that you now have a free will but where that's coming from there's a concept called um um felt intention right and what that means is an example like like I I have my pen right over here I assume that I that my I have my pen on my desk or my laptop and I went with my hand i'm about to pick it up i feel that I have the free will to do that and and the reason is is because there's a prior thought it's very microscopic it's very small there's a prior thought of me going ahead beforehand and then picking up the pen so that thought that exists beforehand occurs first right and again it's a very brief minuscule thought and then the action of me picking up the pen then occurs so of course based on my ego and again the word ego is just another word of the of um having the the illusion of self based on my ego I feel that I am the person who's now picking up that pen why because I I had that thought beforehand so of course of course it's me who's picking up that pen right yeah that's how it normally runs everyone said yeah yeah yeah just to kind of give like a like a kind of a funny funny example like like um when I was younger I was uh playing a video game um on my computer and um and you know just like typical video game you you push a key on a keyboard and makes a character jump or hop and makes it punch a brick wall whatever the case might be right so everything is controlled by the keyboard right but there was like a level on the game where I was stuck on so then I would go to another screen where I watch a YouTube video on how that level would play out with that character so I was going So I was playing the YouTube video and said "Okay you know what that's what the character is doing the character is jumping here then going to that tunnel and it's doing all these things based on that the game character so then I was going back and forth right between the actual game and the video and they came to a point where I accidentally was actually on the video and I was pushing the keys on the keyboard and for a brief second I felt that I was in control of that character why because um again I was hitting the up button and the character would jump up and I hit the down button and the character would go down but and then I would do nothing and all of a sudden the character is moving by itself i holy crap you know what I'm looking at the video instead of actually playing the actual game so that was the illusion of the free will right there and also the um whole concept of the the the self illusion where I feel that I was the one who's controlling the character based on that prior thought which is the self which is the felt intention that I am the one who's going to now make that character move up and I was fooled for a second i was fooled for the first like couple of seconds when I was stuck in that video um watching it but but again the whole reason I'm saying this George is that that the whole illusion of free will and the whole illusion of the self are both interconnected and one and the same and there's really nothing in your brain that's that's going on autopilot because God forbid if that autopilot mechanism fails you'd be dead right so so breathing is just happening right and you're not the person who's making yourself breathe breathing is just happening and when I say "Hey George notice your breath right now." The reason that you feel that you're in control of it is because um is because again you have that prior thought and again that's where the ego kicks in that's all I have thank you

okay here we are

luca just a quick question have you discussed the illusion of free will as well since they're interconnected to the illusion of the self absolutely have you discussed that there is nobody to have a free will or not to have it to have it or not to have it that's the whole thing but in life there are situations where using words free will make sense and it's practical

for the for the way we things but do you get a lot of resistance from people who still believe that they have free will no what do you mean resistance we we are here exploring stuff no don't meaning that someone who's very adamant that they actually do have free will i don't think they come to the

meeting they're discussing this thing in a different

meeting yeah it's all the illusion of control illusion of a doing and making things happen free will it's all one

thing based on the idea that there is somebody here to have it or not to have it

i would like to ask something please uh it's a little bit also in regards to what Steven just said and um free will and everything's just happening

um what I what I think about often is if this is just like happening out of the immediacy like just by

itself why is there something like an intelligent evolution like that cars car motors are yeah engineered better so that they consume less uh fuel people seemingly think of sending rockets making them better faster more stable how could the immediacy like this whole thing be interested in anything constant or forming relationship if it's just like I feel all those things come more out of a fear that is associated to egos we want to make things safe we want to be safer in cars and accidents we create airbags so I feel like the immediacy like this intelligence wouldn't have fear of all this it would just be free flowing so I feel this whole story that is seemingly not coming from some will from some intelligence

um I mean there is definitely this intelligence which makes like a body work breathing like all these organs but but like but would it think of something like let's create a rocket because this earth like Elon Musk kind of thoughts this earth might be unlivable in some 100 200 years so let's go there and this seems so so human smallminded kind of fear-based so I'm I'm really but if we don't have this will and this is just a story unfolding so how could it be such a fearful story why not

yeah it's that's just the thought why not of course but the if I allow the thought is like if if if this is if if you look at the greatness of the universe then this planet what's happening here is so smallminded this is so so how can this be just because it happens that there's this small-minded humanity which is thinking of the like I don't know the sandboxes for for these children to play and it looks like this there's nothing wrong with that i know it's it just seems so like it's such a intellectual mind thing what happens in terms of evolution or next steps of like evolving or project management or whatever building companies this is all fear-based you can trace it down to money I have to live I have to whatever I want to have a little more I want to have more comfort and this is not what I associate to the self this is like such is so do you understand a little bit or maybe maybe but maybe maybe we are in a stage of a kindergarten not like masters of the universe yet and this sandbox is precisely for

that I don't know but it seems Hey

so it somehow seems

that to tap into that and stay into that stay in that um it's needed not to question anything at all like losing all giving up all rejection because I feel ego is basically Rejection the individual self comes from rejection separation comes from rejection but if I if I just let go if I just let everything flow

you know is it is that safe to be there my god it's Yes because if you stop if you let everything flow it's flowing already anyway it's like this it will be exactly the same huh yes it's already flowing now it's flowing with the mind twists and mind gymnastics and trying to figure this stuff out denying hiding running but it's running on its own by itself and you know there's freedom to experience it's not freedom from experience it's freedom to experience what it's like to be in this on this planet Earth where these human beings are running on fear there's freedom to experience that and this is what it looks like

what is what it's like to stop being afraid and let life flow as it already flows there's freedom to experience that too

so would you say it's best to or even necessary or a natural happening to drop this question why completely yes cuz that's the question that children ask in the kindergarten why is this why is [Laughter] that the answer is just because you know the answer it's just because that's how it

is there's nothing wrong with this question you can ask it all you want but all you get is stories about stuff stories about stories about stories and there's no right answer to any story how do you know you just see what is

Why are we here we are here just because we are

here is that enough

thank you you're welcome thank you

okay please

[Music]

okay yeah I saw your hand raising your hand is raising yes so I just wanted to mention that there is a lot of it seems conflating the relative with the absolute we live in the relative world and in the relative world the computer is the computer and the phone is the phone and we navigate through the relative world through a through noticing these things including will free will we notice in the relative world until we reach that absolute world where there is no will then there is nothing nothing is but uh in the relative world we do have will we feel a sense of will and if we we have to be honest with ourselves it is a it is a felt human experience as long as we are in the relative world we know we have a bill i know I can choose i know I can do X Y Z no so uh it's like in the 1930s there used to be these intellectuals just after the nature of the atom and quantum mechanics were starting out there used to be these intellectuals we usually talk about that the wall is not really a wall because it's only made of molecules and there is 99.999% is only space but you don't walk through the wall still you have to accept that the the wall is there in human terms in the same way the will is there in human terms as long as you do not reach a certain level it's like you No uh it's not enough to just say okay I don't have free will oh no it's not like that it's not like I don't have free will yeah you have to go through the whole process yeah because it's either I have a will or I don't have a will it's on the same scale right i have the will or I don't have the will absolutely yeah yeah but that that will is not free what is it free from

that's another thing to look at what is this will free from it's not free from situations it's not free from conditioning it's not free from what's

happening can say I have a free will to be here today but I don't it's what's happening there's nothing here to decide to be or not to be that's what's happening what about the realized person does the realized person have free will or not let's go and ask them there's no realized person the person is I mean the language is so twisted here because to realize tell is to realize that there is no person so even to say to go and ask realize person It already doesn't make sense the real body mind

then it's not the body mind realizes it this is like cheating because you you know what I what is meant but you read the question no I I know exactly what you meant but okay let's go and find one last them okay

yeah that's the joke like Alan once once said on YouTube I didn't meet him if you think you are a person you've been had [Laughter]

but as long as you think that you have a a mug or a cell phone or

something alan B well I'm not Alan Watts but other people also say there is nothing right there is nothing okay yeah so there is nothing yet there is a bug but they also talk about mugs and they also talk about laptops etc yes so as long as you're allowed to talk about mugs and laptops you are also allowed to talk about will yes

can talk about they have a they have a similar similar level of unreality to them yeah although the will maybe has a little bit more unreality because it is like software compared to hardware but still it is it is there until you perceive experientially that there is no will and you also maybe perceive that there is nothing you just you can see that nothing right here right and

now it's that silence between the

words but then I would be experiencing the silence oh no there's have a look you okay

is there eye in that silence oh there is no eye in that silence you're right

so whatever arises in this nothing is what comes and goes on this nothing let's call it that of silence of presence beingness it's

constant

Yes and in that silence there is no will or no will or or nothing nothing

there is neither will nor will because there is silence

only there is only arising yeah is being unhappy being unhappy is our choice

being like ocean and

waves it's not separate but the waves cannot be without the ocean an ocean can be without waves it's being experiencing same thing

thank you

can I please so all this free will no free will this is all the waves the appearances of the ocean of the awareness so there is no right or wrong it's just appearances there's some teachers saying that some teachers saying that some say right wrong but it's all just appearances in this silence

yeah talk about it or not doesn't change anything can make a con conclusions or not if you make a conclusion then you say "Oh I know what that is put on the shelf now I know

right yes really crashed by the intellect

maybe that's why why Ramana said best is to remain silent in that stillness in between the moment you give it a word it's already lost but it can be it can also be the waves are okay there's nothing wrong with waves yeah yeah it's Leela it's the entertaining thing it has some and some some somehow we wanted to play this so I mean it has to come from somewhere even if it's if it's the oneness saying it's boring this unmanifested consciousness let's do something here we go we are right here in the meeting doing something

oh gosh yes right when you think like person person no it's just this beingness personing talking laughing exploring

yes the present moment is like

[Music] this tastes like tea for

Peppermint it's a little bit like this if you look at the

fingers one two three four separate fingers and they moving they doing whatever they want only they on the same hand they're not doing whatever they want and this hand is extension of life so what's moving these fingers are they moving whatever they want or they being moved by h this

mysterious don't even know what to say mystery

peter just got reset

and anyone else like to share for the end we almost there

one of the one of the things that seems to always happen is that people we start making these uh these experiences of others the rhetoric and then instead of speaking from our experience we try to put our normal experiences into that rhetoric we start saying oh there is no there is no this there is no self etc when we have not experience it and there is a you know we we end up fooling ourselves also we're not able to experience the fact that we are not experiencing that it becomes like the old religious uh stuff where everybody tried to fit into a religious pattern it becomes also another religion so maybe you know like whether the relative and absolute are the same or things like that you need to experience the thing and the as long as one has not experienced it then you have to give acknowledgement to the relative as well to the ordinary as well to your experience it has to be sort of seeking the the absolute or I don't know maybe being in the now still I don't know I'm sure G somebody can trip me up on my words but uh I I just think that you should we should not make it a rhetoric uh this is the truth as you say as you imply that we have no idea this is it whatever is it's always changing we can't put it into a box yeah I totally agree with you Ali thank you

you want to Oh sorry uh I was I was reading your biography uh online and um you're writing about um uh going into your living room on a candle lit evening when when it was raining and uh was that was that your first insight in terms of having no self that was the first time I experienced that the mind shut up talking and it was just pure being so it was a glimpse which set me on a seeking path because I wanted that yeah and it was delivered by magic mushrooms thank you mushrooms

you know how many grams you took of magic mushrooms did you measure it like how many grams or did you just take No no yeah it was a full dose nice dose when I experienced that I died or something died it was magical

can I ask yes please um two quick questions um one is there any reality to other people in other words I'm sitting here and you're telling me that you're a person who's asking me questions and you're drinking something that tastes like peppermint and that's not my experience my experience is hearing you say that right so how do we relate to others do we think that there's no one else in the world that's just experiencing me experiencing and then also about like kindness is there any value to morality and kindness um is it something we do just because it feels good or is there no choice and we just get to observe what this body mind does and what happens around us including to this body mind that we call ourselves do we have any effect over anything and how do we view what is happening do we say we are in a meeting now of other beingnesses or like how do we look at everything that's so many questions right if I would say that there is only this ring and there is no other gold on the planet would you believe me no because there's a lot of gold and so there are many forms and these body minds they are here this is Where's my zoom something happened to my camera [Music] oh yeah that's how it works yeah so you cannot say that there are no other people sitting here and talking because we all know that we are here and but we are not separate from life from the aliveness from presence it's one life one one awareness one knowing how else can I say that there is one essence there is one silence there's not my silence your silence there is one silence so this silence is appearing as many waves as many people or as many individual experiences and it's all unique and individual and you cannot compare that you know whatever is known here is not known there but that doesn't mean that this is separate from life itself or from this silence

it's kind of connecting in a different way not through the form but through the essence if that makes sense and kindness oh kindness is such a overrated underrated power it's like the highest power is

kindness and yeah it's it's natural to be kind when we see that that it's all

one it's not just that because it feels

good it's I think that's what we are the the heart the love expressing itself really

so do you see all the people now on the zoom as different observers or different awarenesses like different points of observation happening different

experiencers i see my experience of all these other

people i mean I see my experience of looking at the screen and and seeing heads and half

bodies and then the mind may project and imagine and start building the stories about these other people but the experience is this this present moment is like this it's not like there are other people outside of my experience this one experience right now but I can hear this voice i can hear your voice it's in my experience in this

experience in the

now so like are you the only one that exists oh no no no no not talking about this body mind that one exists that's just complete

nonsense imagine that the body mind is the appearance and this vastness of existence the vastness of existence is only one that exists there's nothing other than that's how I see but not the body mind organism the only one in the universe

That's called solivism or something and people can get lost in

that so it's like people are different points of awareness situated in different parts uh let's say like this there is one awareness one knowing but there are many minds and mind is a unique expression of awareness like there are there is a tree and there are many leaves many leaves can't say there is only one leaf there are many leaves they all unique so the minds are like that

I guess my question is when you see a person in front of you do you think that is a person that I can positively or negatively affect with my behaviors or actions do you believe that there's an awareness there that you can have an effect on the the experience that that awareness is having that mind is having yeah

yeah yeah there are different minds with their own different conditioning and we and all these minds affect each other for sure mhm

i mean body minds not separate from the body let's not do that yeah okay i think we're going to end here thank you you're very welcome thank you so thank you everyone so much for showing up this lively busy meeting thank you uh we can do this again next month on the Thursday again Thursday of the month and you're also welcome to join in on a deep looking which is a little bit different meeting on the first Sundays of each month thank you

bye everyone