What is this sense of self?
When does it appear?
What does it feel like?
Where is it?
What gives us the sense of it?
The tendency is to answer without the participation of our senses.
We use the semi automatic weapons of self to rapidly fire words that defend the barrier around the void.
Attempting to fill a hole with a hole.
Can sensing be the source of seeing?
Without guessing.
Your body is there as a non-conceptual fact. Thatâs good enough, isnât it?
Declarations that the word is not the thing it points to, and the measurement of good and enough, do not address the proposed invitation to find out if our senses might inform our thoughts of the presence of a self. With cooperation in mind, not conclusions, and with affection and care, my question was raised
Well I think it is the brain which has an image of self, and by image I mean a complete working model with all the data and sensations operating to give me this sense of a human being. Included in this, however are all my allusions I might have about a deity, about perfection, and my desires, and other base traits, etc. So I think there is this conceptual side to the way I perceive the world. Iâd say that this conceptual side is set aside the actuality of a human being, the actuality not in the knowing. The conceptual alongside the actuality, is a fundamental conflict, which we struggle with. What we live with, call seeing, but donât see, is this schism and the nature of our own conflict.
I am not drawing any conclusions. I am asking, with deep seriousness, why you are concerned with something that may or may not exist. Physically, we are both here. You have made the effort to come here and I have made the effort to join you. We have already performed a miracle. Why are you now seeking something more? We have the presence of another human being. Thatâs far more precious than anything we might wish to manufacture from our own thoughts. This is something we actually have to care for, not just something imagined that we endlessly agonize over. You have raised your question; and I am raising it further.
I canât help but think whether action and relationship are separable or notâŚ
Also, pointing out that I cannot be here without the other seems to me like a shallow attempt to seize this process for the moment. Did I really see deeply and utterly that which I call a fact? Did I draw a conclusion sooner than the conclusion has drawn itself? If so, why? What am I seeking, or maybe what am I confirming?
Your agreement to that so called âa Factâ which could be the fact of me. Isnât that what is the security I am always seeking?
Without that, Can I, Can one see the fact alone? Completely and utterly alone.
Then you have stopped listening. You are going off somewhere else. That means you are leaving me behind. Why?
Did I? It is a possibility.
I simply read the whole thread and then wrote from no position of agreement or disagreement. Or so I think. I wonder if that is out of not listening or in fact it is. Is listening characterised by continuing a stream of thought?
I wonder why do you say that I have stopped listening
If you are continuing a stream of thought, thatâs not listening, is it? Itâs just a stream of thought. And we are trying to find out if there is something else to what we call the self that is not just this stream of thought, stream of concepts and ideas. Is there a non-conceptual presence of self? Thatâs the original central question here.
Now, non-conceptually, actually, factually, there is our physical presence. Even though we are miles apart, we can demonstrate and verify our actual physical presence. But is there any other non-conceptual presence? Not just here now, but at any time in our lives.
Obviously, we can demonstrate and verify our psychological presence, which is our theories, hopes, dreams, wishes, motivations and all that. We can easily demonstrate the presence of thought. But does the self have any other kind of presence that is not generated by thought? I doubt it. Although we can say that there is and we can invent a dozen more clever images and arguments to explain what we mean, I doubt very much that there is anything to me or you that is not an image, apart from our physical presence.
This is a huge statement to face. Is our reaction to this statement more thought? Or there is a way to face this without thought.
I think one of the potentially confusing elements in the question as you have raised it is in our concept of âselfâ. The self may well be nothing except thought and memory, which can be âsensedâ inwardly (both with our outward senses, and psychologically).
So the same question might be asked regarding the movement of thought: what is the felt presence of this movement of thought, and do the senses play a role in revealing it?
And beyond this - as was suggested by a couple of people on Wednesday - perhaps there is a state or way of being that is beyond thought: silence, space, emptiness. But there is no reason why we should call this subtler state âselfâ, right?
So this use of âselfâ language might be confusing. But your question remains a valid one (once this language issue has been cleared up).
A conceptual and a none conceptual self, hmm. Isnât the conceptual self the wordy and imagery explained movement of life? Whatever we Know of it. At the moment it seems to me as so.
But that definition lacks the fact of the center that exists with each of us, or so I am assuming. We are calling that a concept, or a collection of concepts. If I live with that day in and day out. Then the proposed question has no space and a mere exerciser.
Taking a step back, so essentially everything is in movement. Life is continuously in movement, yet concepts are not. So is there a sense of self that is always in movement?
There is no conceptual self. There are only concepts, ideas, images, words, labels, explanations, opinions, knowledge formed from experience as more words, and so on. We call all of this movement the âmeâ or myself as though behind it there must exist something to which all moving things are attached. The centre of me which I believe to be the real me is as phony as all the other stuff, all the other images.
How do you listen to this? What is your reaction to it, to what I am saying?
Did you just conclude that there is no conceptual self? or that was assumed from the beginning? Because the entries so far points out at the conceptual self. But anyway, doesnât matter I think
So there is the movement of life, and there is the movement of the me. There is the separation and division here.
So is this the separation we the people who know about the movement are creating? Could it?
Holistically speaking, the movement of the me, is a part of life, as misplaced as it is, it is still an inseparable part. Because it is there, it is here. I would not call it phony, because I understand through listening to it as I listen to every other thing simultaneously, am assuming âholistic listeningâ here.
Could it be that âthe awakened selfâ have separated itself from the truth and now is doing the same movement but from a nobler position? Did I separate myself yet again?
I said there are only concepts. Holistic listening is one such concept. In this concept of holistic listening doesnât there also exist the concept of a holistic listener, a self that can magically listen when it has met a certain amount of conditions? This very concept of holistic listening prevents any chance of listening now to the simplest truth and looking at what is actually taking place.
There is no conceptual self. There are only concepts. Listen to it again. Watch the reactions to it, all the assumptions that emerge, all the resistance to being told something so definite, absolute. I am not presenting you with a concept or a theory. It is not an idea that has to be examined in depth and then understood. Behind the multitude of concepts and images that compose your psychological life, there is nothing there as a self separate from its one billion fragments.
I donât know if this goes on to explore whatever @Carl intended to open up.
Holistic listening was not a concept but means of communicating what is seen. It is easier to call things as concepts instead of exploring things as if they were not explored before. Are we assuming a shared knowledge here?
I will still refer to my first message as I see it relevant here. Maybe reading it again would give more clarity
I have re-read the thread, I think the main question is to go deeper into oneâs self, that which we call a self yet it could be anything - away from all the knowledge that the self is a collection of intellectual stuff.
Are you furthering it by saying lets pay attention at what we have here, the presence of us fellow human beings and explore through it? or are you proposing that the aim for a non conceptual self is irrelevant and are you proposing that which is deeper, might be infinitely deeper, could be explored through relationship?
The way I see it is that question was dropped in this thread, so the appreciation of human relationship is a given, otherwise @Carl would not bother to post it in the first place. Unless there is another hidden intention other than exploration.
I asked whether action and relationship are separate or not for a reason that I am yet to see. But I see that it addresses the initial question, how I am yet to see.
Hi Ayham.
Could you please share what you mean by âactionâ and ârelationshipâ?
Hi Carl.
We donât know - the answers for the questions of âselfâ. And we may explore/inquire those - only through thoughts/knowledge/experience - which in itself is ignorant of âwhat/where/when is selfâ.
Just stay with the question - and please donât come to a conclusion that - âthis is itâ.
One day, the question will reveal itself.
Wait there. Thatâs exactly what we are questioning. Does this self have any depth? Or is it all a surface activity? And what is it that is seeking to go deeper? Thatâs also a surface movement; it must be.
Whatâs that surface activity you are mentioning?
If that surface is the movement of thought, I actually would not call it surface. It goes pretty deep.
Can we say going deeper into oneâs own organism? Yet when I say that all that is the self ends up being a collection of concepts. But that self is now part of this organism, part of how it survives and functions. No?
I think what I am saying is: Can we look at this self separately from the organism?
Relationship: Any activity that involves more than one entity.
I spent 10 min just now trying to see action in a way separate from relationship and I donât know if I reached any convincing place. But letâs see, so far I got:
Action: Materialised Intention