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Is Your 'Self' Just an Illusion?


Claire.

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Is Your 'Self' Just an Illusion?

The nature of self is one of philosophy's perennial and persistent questions. Self is easy to describe, yet maddening to decipher. Part philosophy of the mind, part biology of the brain, it combines two elusive ideas: the philosophy of continuity (how things persist through time) and the biopsychology of psychic unity (how the brain makes us feel singular). I see; I hear; I feel. How do separate perceptions bind together into a continuing, coherent whole? How do sentient properties congeal as "me"?

Read more: Live Sience

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I agree with Susan Blackmore in the OP's link, Self is an illusion, it doesn't exist as an independent entity. Our sense of self can be a burden for us. In original Buddhism, the goal is to loose your self. When this happens, what a relief!

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29 minutes ago, Clair said:

Is Your 'Self' Just an Illusion?

The nature of self is one of philosophy's perennial and persistent questions. Self is easy to describe, yet maddening to decipher. Part philosophy of the mind, part biology of the brain, it combines two elusive ideas: the philosophy of continuity (how things persist through time) and the biopsychology of psychic unity (how the brain makes us feel singular). I see; I hear; I feel. How do separate perceptions bind together into a continuing, coherent whole? How do sentient properties congeal as "me"?

Read more: Live Sience

Long ago I realised that we develop our self identity by comparing ourselves to other people. So if you discover you are taller than most you then see yourself as tall. If you discover you are uglier than most you then see yourself as ugly. And so on. I also realised that every aspect of the identity that you form comes with a catch. Sometimes it results in arrogance, sometimes negativity, sometimes it interferes with how you relate to others. And so on.

And the sad thing is that your identity isn't you but a made up fantasy. The identity is not about you, it is about you relative to other people and that means you cannot escape positive and negative perceptions. Perceptions that always cause you to relate to the external world differently than if you had no identity causing you all manner of problems.

Ego death starts when you realise that everything you hold to be true about yourself is a fantasy which stops you reaching the highest state of being possible.

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the notion of an independent self to me is absurd... there is simply no way in my experience to absolutely distinguish the interconnected nature of the entire universe... not to mention all of the levels of reality that we can't perceive

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2 hours ago, StarMountainKid said:

I agree with Susan Blackmore in the OP's link, Self is an illusion, it doesn't exist as an independent entity. Our sense of self can be a burden for us. In original Buddhism, the goal is to loose your self. When this happens, what a relief!

I 50% disagree with you. Self is not an illusion, but does not exist as an independent entity.

The illusion is, I believe, the belief that we can "lose our self" yet maintain any sort of conscious existence. There is always a clear delineation between "I" and "not I" in any conscious interaction we have with the universe around us. The only time this delineation is unclear is when we are not conscious.

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The funny thing about the idea of the ego is that people are led to believe that they must absolutely slaughter off the ego in order to be "normal" or whatever. The problem is that you can no more eliminate the ego than you can eliminate the autonomic nervous system.

The "ego" is just a blanket term that encompasses your entire mental make-up; your emotions, perceptions, feelings, fears, likes and dislikes, memories, psychological connections, your view of yourself and others, etc.

It is the ego which allows you to even be able to defend yourself and others from attacks, for example because you recognize individuals as being separate from your own being. Most animals have some form of ego...it is what allows mommy cats to come to the rescue of their babies or even a hippo defending a baby gazelle from being attacked by a crocodile.

However I do agree that we are so inundated with millions of messages from our family and society about who and what to be that it is no longer clear whether or not a real "self" ever existed. Often I have observed that if a person sustains a brain injury and/or damage that is significant enough, their personality is altered and often not for the better.

Alzheimer's is a example, one of our neighbors finally had to place their spouse is a nursing home because his Alzheimer's got to the point that he was nasty, abusive, dangerous and basically not the person he used to be. So the brain apparently plays a significant role in our mental make-up. 

When I ask myself who or what I am, I find that I am not really sure. I mean I have a name and gender; I am aware of my likes and dislikes but I find that though my interpretation of myself might be marginally different than how others see me, I also know it is no better than how my family probably sees me.

Maybe we are little more than adaptive bio-computers, each one having to find its own methods of adjusting to a society that is becoming increasing ill.

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1 hour ago, Leonardo said:

I 50% disagree with you. Self is not an illusion, but does not exist as an independent entity.

The illusion is, I believe, the belief that we can "lose our self" yet maintain any sort of conscious existence. There is always a clear delineation between "I" and "not I" in any conscious interaction we have with the universe around us. The only time this delineation is unclear is when we are not conscious.

Well, have we ever been so engrossed in some activity that we loose our sense of ourselves and become the activity itself? I remember as a child at play often I would loose my sense of self as a separateness and there was just playing. I remember at the movies sometimes there would only be the movie, me as the observer would disappear. 

In meditation the observer and the observed become one, a unity. I think great musicians loose themselves in the music they are playing. I think in many aspects of life we can often loose our sense of a separate identity within our tasks. This is not unusual. Even writing this I am not totally aware of my self but remain conscious.

I would say consciousness remains in these instances, as consciousness and an aware sense of self are not the same thing.

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21 minutes ago, StarMountainKid said:

Well, have we ever been so engrossed in some activity that we loose our sense of ourselves and become the activity itself? I remember as a child at play often I would loose my sense of self as a separateness and there was just playing. I remember at the movies sometimes there would only be the movie, me as the observer would disappear. 

In meditation the observer and the observed become one, a unity. I think great musicians loose themselves in the music they are playing. I think in many aspects of life we can often loose our sense of a separate identity within our tasks. This is not unusual. Even writing this I am not totally aware of my self but remain conscious.

I would say consciousness remains in these instances, as consciousness and an aware sense of self are not the same thing.

I used to do a lot of drawing, for example, at one time but as much fun as it was I never became the activity nor the thing I was drawing. Sure, I lost track of time doing it just as one loses track of time studying or doing other stuff but I am not so sure that consciousness changes. I would think that it is simply our focus that shifts instead; kind of hard to focus on two things at once.

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29 minutes ago, StarMountainKid said:

Well, have we ever been so engrossed in some activity that we loose our sense of ourselves and become the activity itself? I remember as a child at play often I would loose my sense of self as a separateness and there was just playing. I remember at the movies sometimes there would only be the movie, me as the observer would disappear. 

In meditation the observer and the observed become one, a unity. I think great musicians loose themselves in the music they are playing. I think in many aspects of life we can often loose our sense of a separate identity within our tasks. This is not unusual. Even writing this I am not totally aware of my self but remain conscious.

I would say consciousness remains in these instances, as consciousness and an aware sense of self are not the same thing.

I didn't say they were, I just said one could not be evident, or exist, without the other.

I understand what you mean when you make a example like when you played as a child, but even then you were aware that the game you played was not "you". When immersed in a movie or book, your sense of consciousness would not disappear it would only be translated into the imaginary environment your mind created.

Meditation is a state of semi-consciousness where the stimuli from the environment outside ourselves is muted. It isn't so much we "become one with what we observe or our environment", it is that we even further isolate our self from it and this gives our mind the illusion we are "one with all" - when really we are just less, perhaps barely, aware there is anything but our self.

As for people who lose themselves in what they do - be it music, sport, etc - that is most likely down to them having trained themselves to the point the practice of what they do is almost autonomous - like breathing. In those cases it is not the self that disappears, but the effort of doing what it is they do disappears because of this training to the point of it being "automatic".

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43 minutes ago, StarMountainKid said:

Well, have we ever been so engrossed in some activity that we loose our sense of ourselves and become the activity itself? I remember as a child at play often I would loose my sense of self as a separateness and there was just playing. I remember at the movies sometimes there would only be the movie, me as the observer would disappear. 

In meditation the observer and the observed become one, a unity. I think great musicians loose themselves in the music they are playing. I think in many aspects of life we can often loose our sense of a separate identity within our tasks. This is not unusual. Even writing this I am not totally aware of my self but remain conscious.

I would say consciousness remains in these instances, as consciousness and an aware sense of self are not the same thing.

There were a few times I was playing with dolls and got so wrapped up in the story I made for them that I briefly thought I was them.  One of my friends had to snap me out of it because I was actually crying over a sad thing that happened to the doll.

 

It was weird.

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16 minutes ago, Leonardo said:

Meditation is a state of semi-consciousness where the stimuli from the environment outside ourselves is muted. It isn't so much we "become one with what we observe or our environment", it is that we even further isolate our self from it and this gives our mind the illusion we are "one with all" - when really we are just less, perhaps barely, aware there is anything but our self.

I would disagree on this point. Meditation is sometimes misunderstood. The meditative mind is fully alert and aware. Aware of our own consciousness and of our environment. In this state our egos dissolve into emptiness.

If we are intently listening for some sound, what is the content of our consciousness? We are empty of ourselves and conscious of only listening, we are in heightened awareness.

This is akin of the meditative mind. We attend fully to what is happening, within and without, undisturbed by our own selective egos. A comprehension of what is, of the thing itself. The silence of awareness.

Our intellect, memories, etc. still exist, but in the background, waiting patiently for when we need them.

 

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On 9/7/2016 at 7:42 PM, StarMountainKid said:

We are empty of ourselves and conscious of only listening, we are in heightened awareness.

That's a common description, but if you parse what is being said you'll see that the assertions in this sentence are logically inconsistent despite how enlightened the contrast sounds.  In fact, it's the inconsistency that makes it sound enlightened if it is just absorbed without critical analysis.  It can only be made consistent by ignoring the meaning of the words that are use, or by changing their meaning.  Both acts are logical fallacies.  The usual tactic is say the words without giving a supportable explanation, thus not bothering to make sense.

Succinctly,  it is as nonsensical to say one is both "empty of conscious" and "in heightened awareness" as it is to say that a planar right triangle can exist without having a 90 degree vertex.  The former is defined by the latter.

More thoroughly, let me define the terms and then illustrate the inconsistency.

"We" - I will reduce this to the singular "I," partially to simplify the term and partially to remove the spiritualistic connotation that has been attached to collectivism.  "I" is an emergent property arising from a set of interdependent processes, capable of self-awareness in the sense that the entire set is a self-interacting process that maintains itself within a range of external processes without losing its coherence over time.  The requirement that it differentiates itself from those external processes means that it is dependent on being able to perceive those external processes by sensing information generated by those processes.  In short, my mind exists precisely because it can continue to distinguish itself from things that are not itself, "I" and "not I."

"Conscious" - a required aspect of "I" wherein I am actively processing external stimuli that provide the differentiation between "I" and "not I."  This necessarily requires sensory input.  Sensory input is at its most fundamental level, a running comparison of a system over time, based on the effect the changes have on "I" as caused by the transfer of information from the external system to my sensory receptors.  In short, measurable physical energy affects the processes that are giving rise to "me."

"Empty" - having no content.  Void of matter and energy, and thus any mechanism by which change can be perceived.  True, without any fundamental processes, no "I" can exist here.  Without "I," there can be no awareness. Therefore, "empty" and "awareness" are mutually exclusive.

Further, if intellect and memories are in the background not being used, then memory of meditation would be nonexistent.  The only indication that something had happened would be by the instantaneous skipping from one "now" to the next, with no sense of intervening time.  I assume one remembers listening intently during meditation, since it is described, therefore memory and intellect were actively in use. They may have been as passive as one could actively make them, but they were operating.  An activity continued.

Summary:

1. Continuous awareness of anything of which it is possible to be aware requires awareness of self.  

2. Meditation is an active process.  You must choose to start it, and continuously make the conscious choice to maintain it.  Consciousness and ego are both required throughout.

3. "Intent listening for a sound" means actively filtering other sounds.  Again, a conscious decision to do this must be made and maintained.  Active effort must be expended to execute the filtering.

Conclusion: The given standard description of meditation is the exact opposite of what it is claimed to be, which destruction of ego or at least its complete suppression.  It, in fact, is the practice of magnifying the ego to huge proportion by suppressing other input.  The person meditating is paying an extraordinary amount of attention to themselves.  The way this is done is to practice suppressing attention that is otherwise used to sense external stimuli, and instead focus on the self, or the self and a particular input.  The goal is to leave nothing but the ego, the self, by excluding of all else.  In other words, to be full of oneself.

 

 

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On 9/7/2016 at 1:27 PM, Clair said:

Is Your 'Self' Just an Illusion?

The nature of self is one of philosophy's perennial and persistent questions. Self is easy to describe, yet maddening to decipher. Part philosophy of the mind, part biology of the brain, it combines two elusive ideas: the philosophy of continuity (how things persist through time) and the biopsychology of psychic unity (how the brain makes us feel singular). I see; I hear; I feel. How do separate perceptions bind together into a continuing, coherent whole? How do sentient properties congeal as "me"?

Read more: Live Sience

I should have responded to you first, Clair.  I apologize.  I do believe that self is an illusion, but I also believe that spacetime is a secondary illusion that arises from the illusion of self.  We are the waves moving across water, but we are not the water.  The difference between us and that analogy is that waves are 0-dimensional particles moving in a 1-dimensional pattern arising from a 2-dimensional process that moves through a 3-dimensional space over time.  Interestingly, those form patterns but only when we observe them.  It takes an aware observer to put the pieces together.  Otherwise, there is no way to determine which parts come together to form a pattern.

This page has some simplified visuals in the animations of water.  

http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Demos/waves/wavemotion.html

like this one:

Water-2016.gif

 

Contrary to any illustration that can be made, no system in our universe can exist independently from all other systems in it.  There is a sort of universal entanglement.  Without at least one center of awareness, the entire universe would be a single static set, consisting of every particle in every possible configuration.  Once an awareness is introduced, being a "thing" that can observe itself as being separate from everything that is not itself, the universe can be subdivided and compared internally.  It is those comparisons that give rise to space (the most fundamental definition of how two fundamental particles are different: particle A is X distance from particle B; observing X creates space;) and time (how differences themselves are different from each other:  particle A is X distance from particle B;  particle A is X+1 distance from particle B; perceiving the difference between state 1 and state 2 creates a span of time; we see a change.)

 

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In response to OptimisticSkeptic's post #13 where your quoted me, I disagree with your conclusions.

1 hour ago, OptimisticSkeptic said:

1. Continuous awareness of anything of which it is possible to be aware requires awareness of self.  

To be fully aware of something, awareness of the self must become the awareness of that which one is aware. In other words, if I am listening intently to some sound, there is the awareness of that sound. In this sense, the sound becomes the self. The observer and the observed become one. There is only consciousness of the sound without the ego interfering.

1 hour ago, OptimisticSkeptic said:

2. Meditation is an active process.  You must choose to start it, and continuously make the conscious choice to maintain it.  Consciousness and ego are both required throughout.

One may choose to meditate, but after that choice, the meditative mind requires no further energy of the ego to maintain. Meditation is the relaxing of the ego. It's just being aware of consciousness without the "I" or self being the center of that consciousness.

1 hour ago, OptimisticSkeptic said:

3. "Intent listening for a sound" means actively filtering other sounds.  Again, a conscious decision to do this must be made and maintained.  Active effort must be expended to execute the filtering.

In intent listening to a sound, there is no activity other than that listening. Action without active effort. There is no filtering, one becomes listening. It's actually very simple and requires no mental effort. Mental effort is only required when the self or ego is the center of mindfulness.

1 hour ago, OptimisticSkeptic said:

Conclusion: The given standard description of meditation is the exact opposite of what it is claimed to be, which destruction of ego or at least its complete suppression.  It, in fact, is the practice of magnifying the ego to huge proportion by suppressing other input.  The person meditating is paying an extraordinary amount of attention to themselves.  The way this is done is to practice suppressing attention that is otherwise used to sense external stimuli, and instead focus on the self, or the self and a particular input.  The goal is to leave nothing but the ego, the self, by excluding of all else.  In other words, to be full of oneself.

Meditation is not the suppression of the ego or the magnifying of the ego. The person meditating is not paying an extraordinary amount of attention to themselves, it is not a focus on the self. It is the effortless release of the self. The goal is to leave the ego out of the equation, to be a conscious of only consciousness.

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Your interpretation can only be correct if you change the meanings of words.  Using their meanings, you again contradict yourself.  If "consciousness of the sound" means "the quality of the sound that is its consciousness," then this is impossible because a sound has no consciousness.  However, if you mean, "the meditator's consciousness of the sound" then you have just echoed the meaning of "ego."  Consciousness of the sound is ego, by definition.  The contradictory way you use the words does not make sense.

Short of chemically interfering with one's sensory input and consciousness, thus becoming unconscious as when anesthetized, one must expend effort to continue in meditation.  A person who has practiced meditation may do it with little effort in the same way that a trained athlete may be able to jog for hours.  The mind's natural state is not static.  The senses are not "turned off."  The attention one normally expends on them is simply diverted to other tasks, such as listening intently to a particular sound.

Regardless of your belief otherwise, in the presence of any ambient sensory input accompanying the theoretical "sound," an effort must be expended to filter the non-"sound" stimuli.  All air vibrations above a certain energy threshold will start the chain reaction that leads to "hearing."  All EM radiation with enough energy will warm your skin or excite the cells in your retinae even with your eyes closed.  Your own heart beat and pulse will cause your entire body to move with a perceptible rhythm.  You may train yourself to ignore those sensations, but they are always there and there is effort in removing them from your attention cone.  

I do not doubt the usefulness that can come from meditation.  I simply differ with you on its intrinsic value (I don't value it as highly as you do,) and its usefulness (a more realistic acceptance of it helps one to become more of oneself rather than less, which I also find a more valuable product.) The human mind is incredibly adept at jumping wide gaps in order to draw conclusions without applying critical evaluation that leads to detailed understanding.  The latter is hard work and often endangers the unsupported beliefs that comfort us. Change is difficult.  

 

I speak as one who came to the point I pass through now having long ago passed through a point very similar to the one you appear to be passing through now.  I do respect your journey.

 

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45 minutes ago, OptimisticSkeptic said:

However, if you mean, "the meditator's consciousness of the sound" then you have just echoed the meaning of "ego."  Consciousness of the sound is ego, by definition.  The contradictory way you use the words does not make sense.

I disagree with you that consciousness is ego. Consciousness is sensory awareness and the elusive consciousness of consciousness, ego is one's self-concept, which is always peculiar to the individual mind. One's ego distorts one's perceptions, and this distortion interferes with clarity of perception.. Consciousness without the ego operating is the meditative mind.

Of course, these are gross terms that do not fully describe the subtleties of the thing itself. which needs to be experienced to be understood. The term,"choiceless awareness" is often used, in which the ego or one's self-concept is absent, as choice references one's ego. There is a great gulf between the description and the experience itself.

1 hour ago, OptimisticSkeptic said:

I speak as one who came to the point I pass through now having long ago passed through a point very similar to the one you appear to be passing through now.  I do respect your journey.

Perhaps you have not traveled far enough in your journey. One can become fixed in the complexities of intellectual thought to fully realize the limitations of the thinking mind.   

 

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5 hours ago, StarMountainKid said:

I disagree with you that consciousness is ego.

I believe this is the crux of our disagreement, although I will choose to see it as less a disagreement and more as two perspectives thrown across the same landscape but seeing different vistas.

5 hours ago, StarMountainKid said:

Perhaps you have not traveled far enough in your journey.

I never will have traveled far enough.  I have expanded my awareness over my lifetime, from animal to intuitive to emotional and now to intellectual.  It was not until I embraced my intellect that I realized that there will be more to come.  Now, each new discovery informs me of how incomplete my understanding is relative to what can be understood, even while my understanding expands exponentially.  That is the journey.

Edited by OptimisticSkeptic
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On 9/8/2016 at 4:27 AM, Clair said:

Is Your 'Self' Just an Illusion?

The nature of self is one of philosophy's perennial and persistent questions. Self is easy to describe, yet maddening to decipher. Part philosophy of the mind, part biology of the brain, it combines two elusive ideas: the philosophy of continuity (how things persist through time) and the biopsychology of psychic unity (how the brain makes us feel singular). I see; I hear; I feel. How do separate perceptions bind together into a continuing, coherent whole? How do sentient properties congeal as "me"?

Read more: Live Sience

What about this  ;  I do not have a singular concept of self     , how does this fit in with these ideas ?

 

Note ; I  do not have multiple personality  disorder  

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A genuinely interesting thread. As the wise men of the past and present say, "multiplicity is only apparent", meaning that whilst in appearance there is diversity, in reality, counter-intuitive as it might be, reality is all of a piece, a unity. That being true, a separate self  ultimately does not exist. These matters were well canvassed in Ken Wilber's book, "No Boundary". The extent we feel resistance to these ideas is probably an index of how far we have come to realise that it is the truth. We might even feel it is like some kind of oppressive political doctrine trying to stymie our individuality. But in the end, togetherness seems to be the state of reality, all illusions stripped away.

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Well for me if self is an illusion then I have an imaginary friend, and if I did have him to talk to then my life would get real lonely. :D

jmccr8

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I think people will overthink almost anything I can picture in my mind some intellect bored out of his mind and thinks until he comes up with something to 

overthink . Be happy with who you are and for some who have been given special gifts more than others . I think a bored person would go as far as picking their

nose and sit for hours trying to create some kind of unusual thought . Oh is my booger an illusion ? Did a alien zoom by me and throw something up my nose is it alive ?

I wonder if I poke it will it come alive ? Is it my twin ? Did it hide inside my nasal cavity until now ? At times I read so much of this same thing and it never stops . 

You are conceived in the wound or test tube then you are born or hatched you live then you die , Came from a grain of dust die and go back to dust . 

Edited by Darkenpath25
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I think yes and no.  It is an illusion as far is anything in terms of it goes.  I.e, I can not experience reality without reality being in terms of me.  This is the illusion.  The active part of awareness is not an illusion though.  That which is just awareness itself.  There is no self reference that can occur from that point.  Asking then if the self is an illusion is really asking is the illusion of self an illusion?  To which the answer is yes, where there exists anything in terms of the self.

To me the self is just awareness itself.  Not being aware of anything.  Just awareness.  The illusion occurs through the fact that reality is experienced through this awareness.  It is molded, shaped, stretched, existing then as something which it is not, which is simply itself, but even referencing awareness itself is being "aware of" which it's not.

I think I understand why it's so difficult for people to wrap their minds around what meditation is about.  It's such a simple thing.  So simple that the various perceptions of self bumps into itself constantly when trying to meditate.  

Being wholly nothing but awareness itself is difficult to do.  This is what meditation aims at I think.  You discover yourself, and it's not really something you can talk about without running circles like I am.  It's just something that you understand but can't ever explain.  You just "get it" after awhile.  A knowing without the words.

We are constantly referencing and drawing lines between things within our minds.  When all of that stops, when you are truly still, then you are no longer an illusion.

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On 9/26/2016 at 8:30 PM, back to earth said:

What about this  ;  I do not have a singular concept of self     , how does this fit in with these ideas ?

 

Note ; I  do not have multiple personality  disorder  

I would say ego or self is a body perception. Your body  and social interactons change so does the ego self. So we are many different people during life.

Higher awareness by meditation brings less importance to the perceptions of the ego body. It connects you to a conscious outside of ego. 

I think of it like a bee hive in a way. The bee is the  body with various lots in individual life but the higher awareness is like the higher function of the hive exists as a consciousness beyond the individual bees. Both the hive consciousness and the bee are one. They depend on each other for a higher function in nature.

The beehive is also altruistic to other species and life beyond the hive's life. That might be compared to illumination of higher consciousness, where it sees the ego self  as many limiting illusions  to the mind itself.

Edited by White Unicorn
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I didn't read the article, thanks by the way Clair, just stopped by, my two bits and I'm sticking to it.  Until I read the piece of course. Please excuse typos etc. etc. Self is observing from another plane another level, a totally different perspective than common life, a different view, a different frame of referrence to borrow from someone in another thread ? I think they said reference framed or such.

Another thingg about self or self aware is when actually know what time is, imagine that of a cat(absurdity really) crying because it found out that one day somewhere in the future it would die. Oh! the case could be made for my squirrels around here, they do know winter is coming HA! And moving on ..... sorry for the flow breakage there.
I can plan for myself, I can eat healthy and try to exercise to care for myself (which I don't because I can't stand raw veggies, cooked veggies and most fruit).
Furthermore regarding the things I hate to eat or DO !
Mind over matter? well -- yes, and no, because a better description for most that rings in the mind clear as a tuning fork might be something along these lines of thought, mind over the physical, the tangible, the real world , and, AND! get it done.
Everyone has ideas, no shortage there, getting results, finishing it, it works WHEW! celebration time come on !,
now that is a whole different matter and sometimes as NASA knows, just about impossible.

A trace of digressing/breaking the flow here, yes -- AGAIN!
What I would bring up to programming friends, isn't it amazing how some things are so simple, after someone shows you how its done. Like my lights, or a small motor, everyone thinks those things are so trivial, it makes sense,
they understand everything about them. Yeah, but if you've never seen, or even heard of such things, it would be pretty hard to bring in to reality from scratch.
Even to think of them.
Its the 1800's A.D., If you had a view into the future, how would you even begin?
Could the metals
be made and formed for the car engine-- even in a lifetime? Could you make those huge transformers or bulb not even knowing what's inside of them?

Someone mentioned realities? talking dimensions, planes and such? I know there are frequencies and we are stuck in, ? well it would be... ponderings give me a second,
like a slug or an almost blind tasty snack moving around on the bottom of an ocean. HA! Tyson dinners kid and others flippantly talk about space and distances, light years and such, across the width of the Milky Way, out to Andromeda and back, the speed, the propulsion, good gravy -- we can't even get to another arm of the Milky Way and back safely .

-- Mwoo

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