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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Spirituality & Beliefs > Non Duality

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  #1  
Old 14-01-2022, 11:23 PM
TrueSight TrueSight is offline
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Who are you pretending to be

I watched a movie about magicians/illusionists about a week ago and one of the showmen needed a double for a trick he was performing so they found a drunk who just happened to have the same facial features as him and then trained him to move and talk in the same way and manner as the showman and after a while you couldnt tell them apart.

I got the quote "Who are you pretending to be" stuck in my head since watching this movie and now I feel that every conversation I have with someone is just "me" questioning who this "person" is that i am observing and if he/she is in anyway at all real and who is this one that I am identifing as or pretending to be.
I do still get immersed in the various topics as usual but often go back to the questioning atleast a few times during and after the interaction.
Not a very popular topic to broach with people I've noticed(nobody wants to be questioned, even more so about their very existence) so I mostly keep it to myself but it just keeps popping up to my awareness all the time.
I have been "practicing" self inquiry and other non-dualism ways of observing thought by Mooji and Eckhart tolle for quite a while but this last week have been something else.

Sometimes when I just do nothing and observe all the random thoughts that somehow seem to make up a person it feels like my whole being just drifts in different directions and that the world as I know it is on the verge of collapsing, cant really describe it better than that. Maybe an ego death is occuring I don't know. I also wonder what would happen after an ego death if the being experienceing it is extremly identified with its ego/person.

Anyhow enough rambling(almost),
I have been asking myself and some characters/persons close to me if I/they can in a solid way provide objective proof that the person they identify with actually exist and is not just a bunch of thoughts and ideas that are held on to and being asserted to their surrounding all the time and then bounced back to them giving them the feeling of existing or being real.

Like for example, two beings can observe an orange and a tree and both can say it is there, its an objective fact(is anything real at all is also something to ponder but maybe not in this thread).
But a person really seem to be nothing more than just an Idea, I have read it in books for a couple of years now but only recently really started to understand and experience that information.
I noticed also that there seem to be some sort of strange polarity thing happening for me the last few days as I drift more and more into these experiences then simulatiously more and more self-sabotage tendencies and cravings are happening that really wreck the body and mind with low vibing foods and stimuli, almost uncontrollable.
Seems like this might be a good place to vent these thoughts and if
anyone here can provide some objective proof that they do exist as a person with a name, past,beliefs and so on I would be very interested in reading about it, not to question you but to get some perspective on this whole thing.

It kinda feels like a person identity is slowly dying all the time and it knows this sub-conciously so it has to assert itself and have other beings(other dying person identities) give them life by believing that they are real. Almost like if everyone else ignored a person who mostly got his attention life force from others he would just do all sorts of desperate things to get noticed, criminal acts, negative attention in all different ways just to get some feedback that he/she do exist.

I have for quite a long time pretended to be a wronged victim that is both superior and inferior to my surroundings with a very volatile fluctuation in which of the two that is experienced at any given moment resulting in a very unstable and fractured life experience.
Its been a ride but it now seems almost futile to continue on with this and I feel that rest from all this, good and bad is the priority from here on.

If someone who reads this feel like they been in these ponderings and maybe transcended it I would very much apprieciate some guiding in where to go from here because being "trapped" identifying out of sheer habit as someone who seems fake and unreal is quite a strange and undesired experience.
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  #2  
Old 15-01-2022, 08:51 AM
Greenslade
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TrueSight
If someone who reads this feel like they been in these ponderings and maybe transcended it I would very much apprieciate some guiding in where to go from here because being "trapped" identifying out of sheer habit as someone who seems fake and unreal is quite a strange and undesired experience.
Find some cognitive behaviour therapy, that'll take you on a Journey through at least one of the unconscious cognitive processes that are creating what's rattling around in your noggin. From the state of your mind right now - and I'm not criticising - it's going to be a right Journey, but it'll be very worth it. Mine was. The other thing that's worth a look is Shadow Work, there's plenty of it out there but Teal Swan is the go-to gal. Those are probably two of the best places to start.

I don't have objective proof that I exist as a person with a name, past beliefs and such because all of that was 'dismantled'. Just right now I don't know who or what I am because what I've been left with is a blank slate and on no hurry to write anything on it. Yeah I go through the motions because I have to earn money to pay the bills, but it's a stage and little more. For most I guess it would be disconcerting because there isn't an 'anchor', the sense of 'I am' certainly doesn't feel any kind of solid so psychologically it's like floating in space. It's not dissociative because there's no unconscious volition to distance myself, but then there's no volition to associate either. Whether or not that makes me a whack-job or not I don't know, but Spiritually it's interesting.
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  #3  
Old 26-01-2022, 09:32 PM
TrueSight TrueSight is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2018
Posts: 5
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenslade
Find some cognitive behaviour therapy, that'll take you on a Journey through at least one of the unconscious cognitive processes that are creating what's rattling around in your noggin. From the state of your mind right now - and I'm not criticising - it's going to be a right Journey, but it'll be very worth it. Mine was. The other thing that's worth a look is Shadow Work, there's plenty of it out there but Teal Swan is the go-to gal.
Thank you for replying,
Shadow-work is something I've been looking into every once in a while but never really commited to giving it a try. Seems like it might be a neccessary thing to to to get some awareness about what is sabotaging because the last few weeks have been the most intense self-sabotaging time I've ever experienced before. Like being possessed going from one low vibe and unhealthy activity to the next with no will-power what so ever.

Would you say that shadow work was a big part of your way/journey to "dismantling" the person?

In Sweden where I live I was many years ago offered to go through a cognitive behaviour therapy and it was described as it would help identify harmful/negative behaviours and exhange them for better ones.
Is this what you meant?

Do you still occasionally get "dragged" into identifying with old habitual ideas and ways of thinking/judging and if so, does it take long for you to return to baseline/no anchor mode?

Last edited by Miss Hepburn : 23-02-2022 at 06:34 AM. Reason: Shortened quote as Admin has asked to 2-3 sentences
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  #4  
Old 22-02-2022, 06:53 PM
Maisy Maisy is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TrueSight
going from one low vibe and unhealthy activity to the next with no will-power what so ever.
I sometimes have no will power either.
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  #5  
Old 22-02-2022, 07:12 PM
JnaCK JnaCK is offline
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Socrates was questioning people all the time. he got into trouble over it, but that did not deter him.
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  #6  
Old 22-02-2022, 07:14 PM
iamthat iamthat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TrueSight
I have been asking myself and some characters/persons close to me if I/they can in a solid way provide objective proof that the person they identify with actually exist and is not just a bunch of thoughts and ideas that are held on to and being asserted to their surrounding all the time and then bounced back to them giving them the feeling of existing or being real.
The personality that most people identify with is exactly that - a collection of thoughts and ideas and patterns of behaviour, with no real identity.

The fact that we can observe the personality and its behaviour patterns shows that what we are is something separate. Identity is found in Consciousness, the awareness which is observing it all.

As Ramana Maharshi would say, look within and try to find the "I". We discover that there is no "I", there is just awareness out of which arises the thought of "I", and all other thoughts arise from this.

Or as Byron Katie would say, who would you be without your story?

Peace
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  #7  
Old 23-02-2022, 01:19 AM
JnaCK JnaCK is offline
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in buddhism there is the expression:
"the realization of the emptiness of inherent existence."
an example would be: a table does not inherently exist. it is made up of parts, that when assembled in a certain way, become a "table". assemble the same parts in other ways and something else emerges.
the same with the personality. certain sections of the brain fire up and form the personality. personality is a collection of certain memory fragments assembled in a certain way.
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  #8  
Old 23-02-2022, 06:51 AM
Miss Hepburn Miss Hepburn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iamthat
Or as Byron Katie would say, who would you be without your story?
What fun to find out exactly who Bryon Katie, 79, is - googling.
I like her.
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Prepare yourself for the coming astral journey of death by daily riding in the balloon of God-perception.
Through delusion you are perceiving yourself as a bundle of flesh and bones, which at best is a nest of troubles.
Meditate unceasingly, that you may quickly behold yourself as the Infinite Essence, free from every form of misery. ~Paramahansa's Guru's Guru
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  #9  
Old 23-02-2022, 09:03 AM
A human Being A human Being is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn
What fun to find out exactly who Bryon Katie, 79, is - googling.
I like her.
I'm a little surprised you hadn't heard of her before, Miss H.

I'm even more surprised to learn that she's 79, I'd have said she was at least twenty years younger
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What is your experience right now, in this moment?
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  #10  
Old 23-02-2022, 09:47 AM
Joe Mc Joe Mc is offline
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"Originally Posted by TrueSight
going from one low vibe and unhealthy activity to the next with no will-power what so ever.I sometimes have no will power either. "


Quote:
Originally Posted by Maisy
I sometimes have no will power either.

Sorry I'm answering with a quote within a quote
As Maisy has says, no will power ...i recognised over time
too that alot of our thinking and behaviours are linked into
our survival drive and ego. And instead of finding a cave or a castle
to become purer than white, we should try to accept and
work with these 'energies' they are part of us through
survival and through nature. As has been said, therapy can
help us to recognise transform and let go but it is a slow big
and easy journey at least to begin with. Developing our awareness
through meditation etc. can also help. We need to be gentle and accepting of all phantasmagoria
that are appearing in our lives, we also don't need to let it overrun us though. We need regular steady
and wholesome discipline to integrate and open to our real selves. Joe.

Also this song seems apt, Why ? Because i said so lol just joking !!!

Neil Young -Without Rings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxBLx-3Ztlk

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