seeing through the illusory self
 

Hi everybody,

does the self exist or is it just an illusion?

How can one see it?

best regards
Rabanne

To answer that question, you would firstly have to give your definition of the self that you are asking about.

Neil.

I mean the self/me/mine.

Rabanne

Well not many on this forum believe my beliefs, however the self is who you are as a person/being...a Soulbeing...you are not a human being, you are a SOUL being & connected to a non conscious, non intelligent, non sentient earth body, via the energetic silver cord...or so it is labeled that.

You are the self & you exist & you are not illusory.

The Earth body would simply fall to the ground & start decomposing, if you the Soul'self were disconnected from it.

You are reading my words via/through the vision of the earthly form/body...the eyes send what they receive, through to the brain & the brain converts the information into a different content & then sends that content through to the Soul'self/you.
You then have a reaction to that content which triggers a response by you & your response is sent back to the earthly body so that the non conscious etc earthly body opperates in a way, so that you can interact with the Earthly surroundings.

Although you are not the earthly body, you are however connected to it, AND as the Soul'self, you are also enmeshed within your earthly body.

The self is Soul & is in the image of the creator & is invisible.

The Soul, houses the information of the DNA of the earthly physical body, & in spirit the Soul'self emanates an exact duplicate of the earthly body, of which is called the spiritual body...however when you are disconnected from the earthly body & live on without the physical body, you are not the spiritual body either, as at that moment you are still the Soul'self which emanates the non conscious, non intelligent & non sentient spiritual body.

Both the earthly & spiritual bodies are merely a way for you to display a part of your identity & another part of your identity is your personality.

Do you mean the self as personality? Or the Self as consciousness? or the SELF as Being?

Presuming you mean the self as personality, then its existence depends on our level of identification. If we identify with personality, then it seems real. When our level of identification shifts to the Self as consciousness, then we realise that the personal self is just a collection of habitual patterns through which consciousness expresses itself.

Peace.

Your question is already loaded. Are you aware of this..?

What is ''illusion''...? Perhaps that is something we first need to agree upon in order to proceed any further..

Most people here would have you believe that things that change and are ''impermanent'' are illusion, but I disagree with that.
Just because something changes doesn't mean it's not real. So yes, you exist and even the temporary parts are part of you. Nothing is illusion..

Some have pointed out, first one has to have a common basis of understanding. Otherwise one can talk days on end and just talk past each other.

I see this all the time with the terms
Self
Soul
Spirit
Angels
Devil

and so on.


To say it first, I am spirit, not the physical body nor the mind. So, Self to me is what I am, and what I am connected to. A spirit is always connected to something larger, and what this is can vary. The way I see the Self, it can and mostly is very extensive. It almost always exists in several densities at the same time.
So is the Self an illusion? Not to me. I know how and where I exist.

To go one step further, what I consider my greater Self, of cause is connected to everything else in existence. Ultimately there is only one Self.

mhm, most of you are talking about different kinds of selfs. This tells us that everybody has his own interpretation about the self. That means if more people would answer to this question, there will be more varried answers to them. Why are there as much interpretations to the self as much people? If I ask is a tree an illusion, I think the answer is obvious to everybody. But the same question about the self, and the opionions are different.

Hence - the importance of experiential insight; not learned, or book knowledge.

iamthat and Rah Nam sound [to me] like they are coming from similar places, but it's like a tree, if you haven't seen one for yourself, and people talk about oaks and pine and fir, you think it all sounds weird.

When you have real life experience, you start from insight towards words; people who start with concepts towards explanation always stumble in spiritual practice - which is why to ask the question is great - to go and do (and find) a suitable practice which will enable you to FIND THE ANSWER FOR YOURSELF is the gold.

Best wishes in your search.

JL

self awareness exists, how can it not?

What self associates the awareness with or too is each to their own.

Each to their own just emphasises that there is something associated to self that can think for themselves and have opinions about what self is or isn't .

This something that can think for themselves and experience life as we know it is clearly present .

Ramana stated that awareness becomes consciousness in the presence of a mind-body object .

This mind-body object known as a person is consciously aware .

This mind-body person can think that this construct is illusory or not and some like to say that they do not exist but it is self evident that there is this something present that can think and feel within experience of life .

The only reason the illusory self has even surfaced is due to the realization that what you are exists beyond this mind-body construct .

Millions of spiritual seekers that have not realized this for themselves that read books about no-self or the illusory self would never have thought that self was illusory or not .

This is the problem that is rife nowadays where you can have millions of unrealized individuals arguing about not being here or not or only illusory dream characters are present .

How many who are loving their family members who have not realized what they are beyond the mind-body would question the realness of their loved one's and the realness of their love felt?

I dare say that there would be very few or none at all ..

There is no conspiracy here, there is no God trying to trick anyone into believing that what is present is not real ..



x daz x