Roy: Today there was a realization greater than possibly any I’ve had before. At a certain point recently I started trying to refrain from attaching “concepts” to everything I was experiencing, without success. But that led me to realize that I wasn’t perfectly honest with myself and that there were, again, unexamined beliefs. That made me question one of my deepest beliefs – that I am this body being conscious. This is something I knew not only because of science but also due to actual freedom website. But I questioned if I really had an experiential basis to confirm that. I began a potentially dangerous process consisting of the question – “Am I this?” – based on the principle that I cannot be subject and object at the same time. In other words, I told myself that if I hear something, I cannot be that sound, nor the hearing, nor the ear… I started doing that consistently for everything… At some point I came to the apparent conclusion that I was just awareness… But then something unexpected happened: I saw in a very surprising way that the starting point, the subject, was the “I”. For some reason, I had been convinced I could see the “self” from the outside… that I knew exactly what the “self” was – but the “self” was exactly what was comparing itself. I was unknowingly – but completely – fully identified with the “self”.
Hi Roy,
The following quote might clarify what ‘self’ means in actualist understanding –
Respondent: If I see a real lake and look closer and closer, there is still a lake. If however, I see a mirage of a lake, the closer I get, its lack of existence is clarified. Likewise, the existence of a real self would be clarified with close exposure. What happens, though, is that no substantial self can ever be found.
Richard: This is because you, as self, are the very self that is trying to see the self. Of course you will only find an ever-receding mirage. To put it into language you will be familiar with: You, the seer, are what is wished to be seen. You, the seeker, are that which is being sought.
Respondent: Since there has never been a real ongoing self from the first (only action based on the assumption or belief in one) there is an appearance of something ending when in fact it is exposing and dropping of the beliefs and misconceptions concerning an ongoing self.
Richard: Unfortunately it is not such a simple matter as merely exposing and dropping beliefs and misconceptions. I would suggest asking who is doing the exposing and dropping. I would enquire into just who is holding the beliefs and misconceptions concerning an on-going self. ‘I’ cannot drop the belief that ‘I’ exist because ‘I’, the would-be ‘dropper’, am what is to be dropped. Like-wise, ‘I’ the would-be ‘exposer’, am what is to be exposed.
Only apperceptive awareness will do the trick. (Richard, List B, No. 22, 28 Feb 1998).
What you say you “fully identified with” was still the ‘self’ which the ‘self’ was able to see (except the part doing the seeing). It makes no difference if you “fully identified with the ‘self’” you can see or not because ‘you’, the totality of the instinctual passion plus the social identity, are the ‘self’, whether you identify with or not. The only way to see the ‘self’ from the outside is when ‘you’ are in abeyance, in other word when apperception is operating.
You being the ‘self’ is not a concept or a belief or an identification, it is the reality, and a deeply felt reality as such, kept in place and reinforced by the ever-changing instinctual passions and concomitant beliefs, principles, concepts, etc. It only ends with ‘self’-immolation.
The same applies to your question am I “this body being conscious”. You may believe that you are “this body being conscious” but as long as you are a ‘self’, this body is permanently hijacked by the identity (the ‘self’) within and the body and its consciousness in operation doesn’t get a word in edgeway, so to speak. The only way you can experience the fact that you are this body being conscious when apperception is operating, i.e. when the ‘self’ is in abeyance.
Maybe it’s only your terminology which confuses the issue – I just want to make sure that you understand what belief and concept and identification mean and where they are applicable, else your use of language creates a narrative that can lead you astray.
Roy: For a moment, this brought a clarity I’d never had experienced while contemplating. I realized that this is the kind of question I never ask during a PCE, for obvious reasons (I never think about any of this), but on the other hand, it’s the kind of inquiry that is made impossible outside a PCE, due to the existence of the “self” – I don’t escape it, I only fool myself into thinking that I do. (link)
Even though you didn’t see the totality of the ‘self’ you seem nevertheless have experienced a big chunk of it and realised that you cannot escape it, for instance by labelling it a belief or by trying to disidentify from it (if I understood you correctly).
The actualism method of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive is designed to thin out or weaken the affective influence of ‘I’/ ‘me’ by minimising the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings which keep the ‘self’ in place, and maximising the felicitous and innocuous feelings which diminish the affective energy/ influence of the ‘self’.
Cheers Vineeto