It’s largely habit from hanging around Advaita for a decade. The self/Self view resonates with me, the notion of the egoic self and trans-egoic Self. But as you say, atman brahman, they’re just pointers. I’ll try to avoid saying Self since it upsets you, but if I forget just substitute truth or ground or whatever.
Self might be real or it might be a fairy tale, yes.
Where is the dialogue in that? It sounds like you’re describing a solitary contemplation. How does ‘watching what happens when mind is alive with the question’ give way to interaction? And if there’s no interaction, what’s the point?
That is your question, not mine. I question from the other side. You start with an attached mind and ask what has to be done to become free of that. And you have expectations on the brain for doing that. I start with a free mind and ask how does it come, that the mind becomes unfree. That way I am not concerned with the brain and the past.
It is not a matter of the language upsetting me 
- it is just a matter of the language having a clear meaning.
You must have met people who use the word ‘God’ without a second’s hesitation, without any reflection at all? It is purely a habit for them. They probably have no clear concept in mind when they use such a word - but if they did it would be something like a super-Ego in the sky somewhere, a better and more powerful version of the little ‘me’.
The word ‘Self’ (capitalised) seems to be used by some people in a similar way. But what is this mysteriously capitalised object?
In India the word they use is ‘Atman’ - but used correctly, as we already discussed, it is merely a metaphor (“breath”) for the ‘within’ of human experience - just as the word ‘Brahman’ is merely a metaphor (“great power”) for the ‘without’. The subject side of the coin, and the object side of the coin - but a coin, in this case, that doesn’t actually have two sides at all, because it is one single coin: that is, atman-brahman doesn’t mean two different ‘things’, but the same ‘energy’ (or whatever word one cares to use).
Now if we take a cursory look at what the Advaita fathers said about this atman-brahman, we see that for Gaudapada it is the only ‘thing’ which truly exists: it is that which is uncaused and not productive of causation: i.e., an unborn truth lying beyond the illusory horizon of the phenomenal world. Although the world is full of apparently separate ‘minds’, like countless separate clay pots - each pot containing its own separate space - once the pots are smashed, the space they had contained is revealed to be singular and indivisible; meaning that the apparently separate mental enclosures are wholly illusory. All that exists is this space, and no private selves at all.
And from what I understand of him, Sankara likewise forcefully argued against any identification of this unborn reality with the empirical or mental sense of self ordinarily described as our personal “self”. For Sankara, the space that exists once the apparently separate clay pots have been smashed, is a non-dual consciousness (or awareness) existing independently of the body or the mind. It is not self, and has nothing to do with the ego. The nature of this reality cannot be stated positively, as it is neither the being nor the negation of being that we are familiar with in our empirical experience: it is neither permanent nor impermanent, neither subject nor object, neither one thing nor many. It is nirguna. Right? So any attempt to cognise it - intellectually or through the use of imagination (story-telling) - merely reduces it to the measure of our phenomenal experience, and so denies it.
So even according to Advaita philosophy, there is no naming of this ‘thing’, or no label that fits. It is something to be discovered through insight, if it can be discovered at all. And it has zero to do with what we call ‘self’.
So why call it ‘Self’ at all? - It’s like saying that to be a decent person one should not be an idiot, and then calling the state of mind which is decent - Idiocy !?! It makes no sense.
And, more to the point, remember that we are inquiring from this side of the veil of self - right? That ‘thing’ or ‘no-thing’ can only exist when we are completely free from all selfishness, all self - correct? Yet we are not yet free from egotism, we are still living selfishly, in various illusions of self - no?
So any belief, concept or idea we currently have about that ‘unborn truth’ (which may or may not exist), must be tinged by our own self-ness - do you see what I mean? - and so must be doubted. So if I call it ‘Self’, why do I do this? Is it because I have realised it and so now I use that word? Or is it merely because of tradition (which may be incoherent on this matter) that I use this word? And if it is because of the latter, can I look at my usage of this word afresh, and see if it makes sense to be so definite about something that - like the word ‘God’ - may not have the content that I think it does?
I hope I am not coming across as too critical (this is not at all my intention; I am just discussing the issue frankly) - and you are, of course, free to use whatever words you feel like using, irrespective of any objections I (or others) may raise. 
You may ask anything, only don’t expect a skillful answer😤
At the same time humanity overcame this blindspot and sterosight/depth-seeing and even when one is born with sight shortcoming is capable of overcoming the physical disability by brains fluidity at an older age (74) as which is overcome to me personaly. So this human skill is available!
The “free mind” becomes unfree when it desires/seeks a different state than the one it is in?
Why should there be such a desire? A desire to become unfree? if the “free mind” would talk oneself into what is suggested with your question, it would paralyze itself.
No, the question has arisen from our interaction. That’s the whole point. It is not a question that one of us has kept up their sleeve until now, secretly knowing how to answer it. So we have discovered together a question. Is the mind alive with this question? Only then will you have an answer to your question about interaction. The question takes care of it.
Judging from what you’ve posted, you see the psychological self as a source of grave harm, something best to get rid of. I see it as the source of a whole spectrum of things, harm, kindness, hate, love, destruction, creation, stupidity, brilliance, usw, something not to get rid of but to befriend. So for me saying Self has a very different vibe than it does for you. It’s loaded for both of us, but positively for me.
I rarely talk about my view of self/Self, since it makes me sound like a kook in a Krishnamurti forum. But, hey, why not let our freak flags fly, air our belief systems and conditioning?
Take the question that frames this thread: Are we separate?
In what way? You posted it alone in your room, I read it alone in mine. Where’s the arising from interaction?
Are you really sure you don’t have an answer in mind? Perhaps unconsciously?
As I see it, you posed a question and I responded to it. We might speak ‘together’ about it, but that’s responding to the question, not discovering it, right?
I’m not being argumentative, I’m truly interested in learning about inquiry, dialogue, listening.
It sounds to me that you are not only wanting to defend your use of Self (with a capital S) but also self (with a small s), which I find a little odd.
You mentioned Advaita - so I merely conveyed the general attitude to the empirical self shared by both Gaudapada and Sankara (the putative forefathers of Advaita). Long story short: they were not big fans!
So when you speak of this empirical self as
this doesn’t sound very much like classical advaita at all. Maybe it is something else?
Not only harmful, but it might also be a complete illusion, right? I’m surprised that you don’t seem to have doubted this self-business very much, seeing as you seem to doubt almost everything else?
Rather than saying it is loaded positively or negatively for either one of us, maybe you could say more concretely (rather than metaphorically) what you actually mean by ‘self’? - Do you mean volitions, feelings, thoughts, desires, a sense of narrative history, a feeling of agency and choice? Or do you mean your (i.e. the brain’s) capacity for sentience, the fact of awareness (consciousness)? - Or a mixture of the two?
I think you’re saying that we are a slave to our psychological conditioning.
and not dealing with what actually needs to be dealt with ? (actually I don’t get this bit at all - what are you pointing at here?)
How does this work? I don’t get it (apparently I’m not getting it a lot on this thread) 
If there is stuff I don’t understand : Absolute truth, baseball, etc… I just accept that I don’t understand it. Whats so special about spirit and heart? Could you maybe start by defining spirit?
Waoh! That sounds pretty amazing - could you say a few words about this, and if need be we might give it its own thread.
For example : what do you mean “to start with a free mind”? You start with the concept of a free mind? Whats that like?
No. “Perceiving the fact” cannot be distorted, because distorted fact is not a fact. What is true is:
Because words are not facts or perceived. So in order for us to think and converse together, we need a quality of togetherness in our own thinking. It is not my thought and my idea to be protected and defended. It is my responsibility to be understood and to understand what is being said.
That is not the right question. It will lead to nothing because language is purely mechanical so it will lead to endless speculation of other technologies that could be defined as thinking… and anyone can group all those technologies under term “language” because it is our experience and language.
On the other hand seeing What is thinking?
Not defend, share.
! 
Orthodox Advaitins tend not to be big fans of anything but brahman. 
Yes, it’s ME! It’s part of the story that is my present Weltanschauung. All sorts of things have gone into this story, Advaita, Buddhism, Krishnamurti, Whitehead, Seth, integral theory, panpsychism, even a smidgen of good old Catholicism. And all these things are refracted through the prisms of my mind. Which is why I can engage with Advaita for a decade and be fond of the self, or with Buddhism and be open to the possibility of a Self, or Krishnamurti and see the benefit of having a path.
Oh but I have doubted the self and Self, archly, for many years! And I still do, but more gently. What I don’t doubt is the power of the egoic self and the degree to which we are saturated with self. Illusion or not, the self is the most important and compelling thing most of us will ever know.
The self is, for me, what it is for all of us here: a thought-feeling-memory based image of who and what I am. The Self is the Mystery, the unknown, the ground, our true identity.
By ‘spirit and heart’ I basically mean: Truth. The true nature of reality, what’s really going on here.
I trust the ability of logic to reveal truth, but not Truth (should it exist).
truth/Truth is a way of looking at reality that derives from the two truths: relative (aka conventional) and absolute (aka ultimate). truth is consensus reality, Truth is the Mystery (nondual reality, the unknown).
This is not meant to convince anybody of anything. It’s just my story. If it happens to resonate, yay, it’s rewarding to share stories that resonate. If not, yay too. It’s a non-zero-sum Yay! Yay! deal.
I’ve been posting a lot, possibly too much. Sorry! I’ll back off for a while and limit myself to responding to messages that are addressed to me.
Answers don’t belong in the mind. They clog the mind and make it dull. Are we separate? This is an age-old question among human beings. It naturally arises when we stop to consider our own behaviours and reactions. It is a question that comes out of an observation of the way we live. In this discussion we just happen to have brought it into the foreground; it is always there in the background. But now we have modified the question, making it appear to sound more personal, by asking: do we love one another? There is no sensible answer to either of these two questions, so only the question itself is capable of yielding fruit.