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Sort of. Mind will not all of the sudden say: I want to die - on the contrary, it will fight as long as it wants to with concepts and theories and experiences and unicorns... until it will hopefully one day declare "bankruptcy", exhaustion, forfait, no can do. hehe What I meant is that those teachers do no "plan" in any way to teach. Their mind has become just what it is supposed to be: a translation machine for Self. They are just letting their body-mind be "used" as life (God, Love, Universe) wants to. What comes up here when I read this, is that...even an experience of pure bliss and love ... is still ONLY an experience. It comes and it goes. This can be a wonderful way for Ego to enter through back door and keep seekers stuck in "high" and "low" illusion Ego IS concepts. Any concepts.

@popi Glad it helped! When a person that is living from the Source from within meets another that also does the same; such purity, bliss, and unity. This is healthy.

I began seeing this 2-3 months ago. What changed right away was that everything I perceived stopped being the effect of something else, but more like the spontaneous occurrence of itself. Like, when I took a walk outside I saw and still see something in the trees, that is also in the ground. Also in the crying kid and also in my wandering thoughts. At this time I experienced extreme bliss for a week or two and then I fell in probably the deepest hole I every experienced on this journey. I came out of it yesterday in my daily meditation in which I was deeply in my unconscious, re-living childhood memories and crazy other stuff. At some point it just felt like a rock fell off me and I intuitively knew that I was through with this. Since then, the horrors went away. Thanks for your post, man. I appreciate it. While I was having these bad cycles, I still could see it in everything. It was just that my thoughts would go nuts and fuck me up day after day. Now it feels like a silenced city after a hurricane, a few people are still there, but there is this peace everywhere that underlies all the going ons.

But lets say that I was envyous of someone like Eckart Tolle because he is enlighthened master. Then, I think that is a good form of envy if I can use it as motivation to become enlighthened myself and actually get some great Benefits such as: Ego death Unconditional self love Bliss Pure flow Being cognition etc. That would be envy working in your favour But it mostly does not Becuase the things you are envyous about like someone having a Nice car, good looks, great physique/appearance, etc. These things will never make you happy if you get Them unlike the holy grail - enlightenment.

@abrakamowse @Mal Thanks guys! I've actually been practicing mindfulness meditation pretty much daily for 7 months now. You might be right about there beeing thoughts in the middle of conversations @abrakamowse but I'm not aware of them if that's the case. I just get this unplesant feeling and wanting to escape the situation. However I can actually relate to what you're saying @Mal. About 3-4 months ago I had an experience during meditation. There was a distance between me and my thoughts and I could watch them pass by in a totally different way than I've ever could before. I've still never felt such bliss during meditation as I did that day. The following days where the best days of my life. I've never felt more alive or more 'me' than during those days. No insecurities, no hesitation, totally confident, but not in a cocky fake way. Just love and compassion. I remember thinking that the joy of expressing myself authentically makes me so happy, what else do I really need? What else can make me this peacefull? I DIDNT EVEN WANT TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES, I'd sit and meditate instead(this is huge for me). During these days it seemed as though my entire reality shifted. Every interaction was different. People would open themselves up for me, in a whole new way. And I was totally clear in my mind, no stress(which I usually suffer from in my line of work). I can't really put it into words...I'd been shy, timid and a big people pleaser my entire life and much of it just disappeard over a very short period of time. However during these days while meditating, I remember feeling an intense fear, "Can life be this good?" "How long will this last?" "Who am I?" The "effects" slowly begun to fade away during the following weeks and months. I started getting stuck in my mind again. The thoughts started to feel "heavy" again and it felt like I was beeing possessed almost. I was getting back to my old familiar self again. And I don't like that guy I remember watching myself beeing shy again and thinking "What the fuck am I doing?". It almost felt like I was acting. Because I then knew it wasnt me, I've experienced me and that shy fearfull guy is not it. Today I'm totally back in beeing identified with my thoughts(monkey mind) and still fighting the same battle I did when I first started this Self-actualization journey. Also I just want to thank you guys for sharing your knowledge and advice about these things here. There is no one else I can talk about these sort of things about. Youtube is great but human interactions is something special. Truly, thank you!

Self-Honesty: Once you have had the first glimpse, that moment of REALIZATION, of always being THAT, perfect, infinite and timeless, the real path begins. What to look for - hindrances: SELF-agenda - more or less unconscious. If you want to become enlightened because it will bring you "{xyz}" , think again. What you are embarking on is a path where that self that is searching for whatever dreams it might have, THAT SELF, is not real. The self agenda might manifest as: wanting to feel good, wanting to become better, wanting to take advantage of, superiority issues, etc. Running away - if you are embarking on this path from a desire to run away from emotional/psychological/physical pain, again, think twice. How to recognize when you are running away as opposed to "dropping the story" (I will probably later on write an entire post on this): in essence, running away feels fearful and constrictive. It leads you into DOING: addictions, reading, Youtube, endless back and forth communication, sports, going out, etc. Bypassing - using spiritual concepts as a dogma. You remain at a level where, even though you know exactly what to say and do, you have accumulated TONS of information that you can provide (parrot), there is no real WORK being done. It is all at mind level. An analogy that I can find, is that you pretend that you are a world class cook, by showing your collection of kitchen utensils, ovens, cutting boards and other "paraphenalia", but in reality, you never cooked a single cake! *little note on last point: let's say that someone who ate a particular cake, is given the description of that cake by someone who only ever READ about it. The person that already ate the cake, will ALWAYS KNOW, and others might feel it too, that the other one only read about it. ADVICE: Follow your longing. Make this an absolute priority. When you have found something that resonates with you, STOP the search and work that tool! Working the tool means to really sit down and do whatever it proposed in it, as opposed to just mentally understanding the principle and moving on to the next thing. Ability to transcend deep inner programming: You do not need to go looking for things to fix or to transcend or to integrate. Life will put them right in front of you. I will give you a personal example: After my first full day of pure bliss, next morning came in with a loud bang: "why would YOU be enlightened?" - I had done enough shadow work by then (Teal Swan, Noaf Elkrief) to recognize immediately the "worthlessness" issue coming up to be looked into. I immediately begun working on that, and this is also when I found Mooji. So, whenever something comes up into your direct experience that feels anything less than pure bliss and acceptance, it should become like a bell for you that says: "LOOK INSIDE". Here is how to do that: ******* *** Focus and commitment: Once you have embarked on this path, NOTHING is apart from it! Everything is part of the letting go of what you thought it was YOU. You will have to find ways to keep focused and to go on, even and especially those days when everything will feel like death. Find a guide, a guru, an YouTube channel, a E-buddy, a teacher, etc. One note here: At one point, that too will need to be let go of. Sometimes, the "pull" of the first glimpse will be enough to keep you focused. Other times not - prepare for these times: keep "emergency" aid at hand (this post might be one), favorite videos, techniques, people, etc. Use everything you can to move you forward.. Willingness to accept that...you're wrong! Having an open ear and open eyes - being able to listen and to read "spiritual concepts - is not enough. Actually integrating these concepts demands the willingness to admit that your old paradigm is..."wrong". Become aware of your own barriers inside that stop new perspectives from actually effecting your notions about the world and yourself

This topic is intended to help those of you who are seriously pursuing enlightenment work. A bit of a "dictionary" of terms, as they will be used here: I = life = this = God enlightenment = realization of no-self = "pathless path" / "gateless gate" E-Work = enlightenment integration work Let's begin. Awakening tends to just happen. Either is it a result of profound suffering or dissatisfaction, or it may just happen at a random moment in life. The best that I can describe it is like the awakening in the morning. If you look with awareness at that time when you first wake up, you will notice that there is a moment where something is REALIZING that it is awake. * a good habit is to become very aware of the few seconds just before you go to sleep, and few seconds just when you wake up. It is a sort of an "awareness training" that would give you many insights into how mind seems to work. Even though it is personal and it may manifest in different ways, the GENERAL flavor of this awakening is one of complete acceptance, love, oneness and peace. Here is what I wrote the day I had the first glimpse: What I didn't understand at that time and what took me completely off guard, was that... it was JUST an experience that came and it was going to go. The journey that took me from there to here is what I want to concentrate on here. It is ESSENTIAL that you understand that an enlightened being, I prefer the term "free" or "liberated" being, is not one living in the above mentioned pure bliss. Not in the beginning. Not even very soon. The length of this path to full bliss is dependent of several factors: Self-honesty ability to transcend deep inner programming focus and commitment

Hey all, long time no see, I've missed you all a lot Let me tell you about a technique I've recently developed, I want to give credit to Leo and and Alan Watts that inspired me a lot over the years. So I call it the Buddha meditation and I practice it like that: First realize that meditation is not something you DO, it's a state of simple being as described in many techniques. My method isn't any different, I would say it's more of a pre-contemplation that reminds you to be open and relieves the expectations. The second step is a little contemplation that goes like that: "Could it possibly be that I'm already a buddha?" "If I were a buddha would I try to get any where? Would I try to realize something or to gain more knowledge? I guess not. I would simply sit here because that's simply how a buddha sits and enjoy observing all that is in my awareness. Enjoying my bliss" Now try to connect with your experience and from time to time you may guide yourself back to this image of simply being a sitting buddha and just be. So basically once grounded you just sit. I hope you will enjoy it like I did and stay on your path. Good luck

Week 1 … and the devil wrestled with himself for a week and he put on a great show for god. *** Hours sat: 33 Current Daily Average: 4.7 Experiences: Extreme pain in knees and buttocks Lingering pain in shoulders/neck Pressure in skull Headaches/migraines Extreme negative emotions – Terror, Rage Extreme positive emotions – Joy/Bliss Love Anxiety attacks Sexual arousal Irregular pounding heart beat that could be felt throughout body Increased heart rates Adrenaline Spontaneous muscle spasms and locks esp. in core Violent Shaking Sweating Shivering Internal resistance – like a volcano was erupting below by navel, spewing hot lava up into my thorax Tight chest Laboured irregular breathing – I do long distance running and I experienced a shortness of breath/burning sensation in lungs that occurs when running above lactate threshold Crawling / tingling sensations (like insects were running over my body) Nausea Claustrophobia Suicidal thoughts Clenched jaw, grinding teeth General malaise Difficulty sleeping, vivid dreaming Fatigue / exhaustion Depression Feeling of impending death Insights: 1. There is suffering 2. This is quite abstract, but I want to explain how the insight happened. I was watching the music video below (Snakadaktal - Hung On Tight). I thought of his awakening at the beginning of the video to be symbolic of my first awakening. He then sits up and looks at his reflection in the mirror, symbolic of re-identification with ego. He then goes on to try and continue a dead party, pushing people aside and hurting himself, whilst singing “I hung on tight..” I realised that I have been clinging onto my previous experiences and that this has been a source of great pain. In other words I've been trying to keep a dead party going by living from the MEMORY of my past experiences rather than by embracing the experience that is unfolding before me NOW. I already understood this intellectually of course, but the insight sunk down into my bones when I watched this, it clicked into my being. I cannot grasp enlightenment, I cannot effort enlightenment, I cannot hold enlightenment. It changed from an insight I learned, to an insight I earned. I came to understand what Mooji is talking about when he talks about the “final ace up the sleeve of the mind” The meditation session immediately after was much easier. I was able to bathe all of the negative experiences in a much clearer awareness. Awareness that was not fragmented by the mind. Whilst the experience was still horrible, I was able to sit perfectly motionless for the full 3 hours. The edge had been taken off of the suffering because I was much more present with the sit. It's very relieving to know that the process is already delivering results.

@Mal Nihilism is a belief that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. Belief is a construct of thoughts. Thought content is illusory. Illusion is the opposite of reality. Reality is truth. Ok, so what is reality existentially? Pure transparent empty awareness. It's everything (all forms seen and unseen) and nothing (everything beyond object reality). Notice - it's not just 'nothing', that 'nothing' is actually 'something' special, and it's 'EVERYTHING' as well. Nihilism would only suggest the 'nothing' part. It would be impossible to integrate and include nothing into nothing. Object/ form reality is to be taken into consideration - manifest unfolding, the means awareness happens to experience itself. There is no denial in that everything is just happening for whatever reason or no reason at all. We now know from neuroscience that our unconscious brain processes 11 million bits per second (10 million times as fast a computer), but our consciousness is only 60 bits per second. That means we have no idea what we're doing So sometimes not knowing comes as a relief and in those brief moments we rest in the bliss of 'this'. So go ahead and use the 60 bits you got to appreciate a song and a story - both NOTHING and EVERYTHING, life at play, a miracle, reality, truth. Hugs Edit: Just thought of adding Ayla's thread 'Mind Attacks After Initial Seeing', you might also find helpful:

@jes Can we define ego a little? In my eyes the word ego gets thrown around too much. I'm guilty of this too. But can we really speak about "ego" and the subtle differences between manifestations of the ego's efforts, in contrast to egoless "suchness" (aka "what is" "this" "liberation") until we have a real experience of what it is to be in a state of "egoless-ness". Do we as members of the spiritual community blame everything that seems "bad" on the fault of the ego? How about we try to experience what it is like for the "I" to collapse, and then look at what is left? There are feelings. Emotions. I know that for sure. We have this distorted idea that enlightenment is suddenly this pure state of perfection, pure bliss, pure heaven. This idea is not accurate. The realization of no "I" is just very normal. It's more real that the warped state when the "I" is in charge. A simple pointing out instruction is this: All there is, is sounds. Sensations. The felt sense of my ass on the cushion and my breath rising and falling. Whatever is arising is just arising for nobody. This is the easiest way to differentiate between the feelings of the ego, and the feelings of true nature. You are right about the reaction thing. But I've noticed this only occurs when the ego is strong, the sense of self contracts and pushes out impulses and projects them onto the environment. So, it can be said that shadow only appears when the ego is in charge. I thought this distinction would come in handy

Ayla's enjoying the sweet taste of bliss. Noticing the sensations in body and the thoughts passing by like clouds. Not attaching has become natural, cause there's nothing to attach to or from or with. Ayla's noticing how bliss isn't being pushed against. Even though it comes and goes, exactly like the hell... there's no desire to push it back! Also, exactly how it does for the hell, body reacts heavily to it...mostly tingling ripples! **************************************************************************** NOTHING to wish. NOTHING to solve. NOTHING to do. NOTHING to understand. NOTHING to fear. NOTHING to push against. NOTHING at all!

LOL It's better! (If there is such a thing better than cheesecake?!!) No, you can't think of everything as a manifestation of your True Self until you have had an experience of the Absolute. This is why we must taste it first. This is why I said it won't make sense to you at the moment. However, the reason I dropped it into my original advice for you is that you were struggling to accept reality, but accepting reality first means we accept that we don't like certain parts of reality! Because our resistance is also part of reality! Always work with your inner reality first and as you develop you will be able to integrate more of the outer reality. I made these distinctions so that you can see how acceptance of reality unfolds in stages. We don't have to be at one with the universe now, we can only be who we are, so we start there The you isn't testing you, the Divine does not discriminate or answer prayers like the God of our monotheistic religions. It could be said that growth is a process of becoming "one" with reality gradually and learning to co-operate with it. For example, at our moment of death it could be said that we have grown and developed sufficiently if we are at peace with the inevitable. If we're sorrowful and full of regret we are still immature and resisting and didn't really grow up during our lifetime. From the perspective of the Absolute everything happening on this planet "is as it is". Grace is being able to co-exist with reality even if it hurts like hell. There is no escaping reality, a lot of teachers try to hide in the Absolute bliss states. These people are not enlightened according to the wisdom traditions. Maybe you have some cultural conditioning about what the Divine really is? This might sound crazy, but if you think about it, it's more real than trying to create a utopia: Consider this: How do you really know, as an individual ego, that the suffering and separation on this planet is always completely negative? Some suffering helps people grow into better human beings. Wars have been fought and countless lives destroyed for modernity and freedom of speech. How can we as people decide what is best for the world? We don't. We only have our limited perspectives. And even if we all got our wishes granted, it would never work, because one persons idea of heaven is different to another persons. Doesn't this sound more Truthful than a utopia?

Sort of The more you develop the more you will understand that those acts are manifestations of your own True Self. It will hurt more, but bother you less. In Zen there is a path to full Enlightenment called "Tozans Five Ranks". It explains what full enlightenment is, which is not Absolute Truth bliss state, but an integration of the Relative and Absolute - which means that this relative world with all it's separation and suffering IS a manifestation of the Absolute, or Divine, God Head (whatever you want to call it). It also means that there is nothing outside of you that can truly harm you. It's all "you". But first we need to taste Absolute Truth

@Mostafa Kibar why did you start your course? What aspirations did you have before starting... Get in touch with that, don't just study for grades or anything external. If you think this is not the right degree for you change it do what you love, follow your bliss find the courage to do it I'm searching my purpose now after i completed a degree I'm not really passionate about.

To be honest im not working towards enlightenment to bring joy or happiness to myself. My purpose is to block unnecessary emotion and to get out of suffering. especially this disguesting, sick, dying body. Of course I'm still happy and healthy since I'm only 22. But.... nothing stays forever. It is totally ok not to be happy or bliss or in peace as long as I don't reborn.

Thanks, @Saarah @Kenya. You make some great points. I love the "follow your bliss" advice but I forget it too often. Already I'm seeing the possibilites that drawing can have.

Music is great. It has the power to elevate your emotions to a blissful state, and evoke energy in your body especially through dancing or singing. A sad song can allow you to accept that emotion, removing your resistance to it. Listening to music can be a very powerful form of meditation. When listening you may find all of your attention focused entirely of the rhythm, placing you wholly in the present moment, ceasing your thoughts, forcing you to forget yourself for the time being. On a related note; I'm not sure why some people on this forum are so content on labelling so many things as a 'distraction', particularly hobbies, friendships and other things which bring joy and passion. Perhaps they haven't experienced the fulfilment and bliss which can come when really actualising these things (from a Being oriented perspective). Actualisation is the easiest path to Transcendence. People will naturally tent to Transcend when fully immersed in what they love.

@Natasha @Salaam Hi to you both, For what it's worth, and if either of you are interested at this point... I happen to think this is a very fruitful dual going on. I'm enjoying the back and forth of high quality information coupled with insight.... and adherence to view! If either of you are interested in a quick "kensho" here is a pointer: @Natasha Salaam is actually completely grounded in reality, you just don't want to see it because you're clinging to your view. @Salaam Same goes for you! Both your views are just views. The first one to drop their defensive position against reality right now wins a satori! Enjoy the bliss! Regards Mal

@Natasha No, you believe all of the above and project those beliefs onto other people. Reality works differently than your beliefs, which is why I have the capabilities I have and you don't. You don't do the stuff I do now. Can you slow down time so you can catch all the different split-second gyrations of the structures working behind the thinking/narrating mind? Have you differentiated all those structures so you can work with them directly instead of "thinking"? Can you choose when to take control of your thoughts and when to let them automate? Can you learn anything you want? Have you uncovered for yourself the structural elements of learning? Do you have the ability to track how the belief/internalization system works in the body? Can you choose and effect the chemistry of what you trust/internalize? Have you developed your inward and outward sensitivities to be able to feel the chemical build-up that comes from the respiration of your cells? Can you track the chemical by-product of certainty, over-excitation, delusion, and fear? Have you harmonized your core fears? Have you bridged pain and pleasure, so even pain brings tension euphoria? Have you developed and harmonized your digestion, to improve intuition and automation? Can you feel tension at all times, like a second set of emotions, that you feel in parallel with emotions? Can you create euphoria, bliss, darkness, light, and access different parts of your personality, whenever you want? Can you choose your flow states? Are you aware of how the brain partitions different realities and can you maintain tension, so the shift isn't wiped from your memory after it happens? All of the above are things I actually do. Trust me, you have no idea what it is I do and how ignorant your beliefs and projections are to me.

I did Leo's "Do nothing" meditation for 2 hours and felt this amazing sense of bliss, not related but would just like to add

@ChimpBrain Exactly, there is a huge difference between having an emotional "experience" and actually changing and improving who you are at a base level, that gives you an expansion of practical application. I can create bliss and euphoria all I want, but I don't use that to gauge progress. It's about how have you changed when your calm and back to base-line and is that change progressive? What's been added on to who you are? Has your sensitivity changed? Can you hold more dimensions within your focus? Has your pacing changed? How have the structures inside you shifted (once you're sensitive enough to even feel such things)? How has your resiliency improved? Changes in Health, Connection, Capability, Expression, and Choice. Not how "high" you're getting in a single moment.

@Lha Bho some pretty disappointing answers so far huh? Pretty much everyone's answer here was all focused on one narrow thing, usually revolving around some sort of comfort. I want to be happy, I want to feel bliss, I want to feel like everything is a game and I don't have to risk or feel any more stress. I wanted to be connected and consumed by some fantasy land collective being, so I don't have to worry about anything any more and just float along in cosmic bliss. It's like, everyone wants to go back to being coddled like a fucking baby. Ha, fuck that. The happiness and the bliss and not wanting to suffer anymore, I completely get that and I've achieved that. I can feel bliss and happiness whenever I want and I never suffer anymore, because I'm never a victim. Bliss is kind of boring to me by itself actually, but it's a useful feeling to add into myself when I'm resting. But, the real shit is in what you build and create and discover for yourself and then give to who you choose. Your presence, your core, your soul, whatever you want to call it grows. You get to choose what you add on to it while also gaining and expanding other abilities. You can feel more deeper things than anyone can imagine, your stronger and pain and stress isn't as big of a deal, so you can choose to reach and process depths of yourself that require very strenuous undertakings. Your reflexes are faster, you can slow down your perception of time, you understand the elements of learning and can learn whatever you choose. You gain way more capability with your body and have many more things besides the mind to interface with. You gain whole new sets of sensations and skills that you use in parallel with your emotions. Passion and motivation are yours to cultivate as you choose and you have the strength to build it from the scarcest of environments. You build you own world, own beliefs, manage your own ignorance and limitations. and every step you take shows you more and more of what the world really is and how it's all up to you, to build something worthwhile for yourself. No one will save you or do it for you, but you don't need them to, because you've grown into this titan of a person who can handle it and build an oasis in the wasteland. It's about getting good at life. Nature is both brutal and beautiful and the side of nature your on, comes down to how the quality of this you that you've built can handle the rigors of brutality and savor the mysterious nature of it's beauty. Bridging both extremes and everything in between, so you pick and choose how to create the best of all worlds. Fuck a passive life. Every single fiber of my being is involved in creation now. I get to evolve based on my own design and it's my favorite fucking thing to do.

Enligthenment is truth realization. NOT bliss, NOT love, NOT a feeling of exctasy. What you feel during at enlightenment is irrelivant. Alot of spiritual teachers really stress this point, especially Rubert Spira, Jed Mckenna and Peter Ralston. As Peter says "Enlightenment is not bliss, however bliss might occur from a mind that has been set free, but that is not the enlightenment."

@Alexandre I question this all the time myself. Not exactly "identify", but more as to except the fact that mind is a part of reality. What is constant? The mind constantly witnessing a changing existence. Through the mind and a sense of I'ness, it experiences existence expressing itself in an infinite number of forms and also the realization of the oneness behind the many. Isn't that part of the miracle of existence expressing itself through the minds awareness of it? There is no "I" - O.K., but what is this unshakable witness that experiences this beautiful diversity of existence expressing itself in so many different forms? What sees these posts and responds to them? Something remains. Everything is in balance when the one is realized as being the source of the many within this realm of physical reality. That is not to say that mind will than cease to exist or we should deny it's existence if the one is realized as the true source of the many. I'm not talking to a point of fault as ego/self that excludes the whole, but to the point that diversity can be appreciated in each individual expression by the mind. I can only go by my experience of the one expressing itself in a multitude of beautiful expressions within existence through the minds eye. by Steve Taylor. If there is one concept which has been under constant attack by psychologists and philosophers over the last few decades, it is the idea of ‘you’ – that you are a real entity or ‘self’. Many modern philosophers and scientists suggest that this sense of being ‘someone’ is illusory, or just a simple product of brain activity. Somehow the billions of neurons in your brain work together to produce it, and all of the thoughts and feelings which it incorporates. This view was expressed very graphically by the scientist Francis Crick, who wrote that: ‘You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.’ From a less biological perspective, the philosopher Daniel Dennett speaks of the illusion of the ‘Cartesian Theatre’, the sense that there is ‘someone’ in our heads looking out at a world ‘out there’, and also watching our own thoughts pass by. In reality, says Dennett, there are only mental processes. There are streams of thoughts, sensations and perceptions passing through our brains, but there is no central place where all of these phenomena are organised. Similarly, the psychologist Susan Blackmore has suggested that the self is just a collection of what she calls ‘memes’ – units of cultural information such as ideas, beliefs and habits. We are born without a self, but slowly, as we are exposed to environmental influences, the self is ‘constructed’ out of the memes we absorb. Modern neuroscience seems to reinforce such views. Neuroscientists claim to be able to ‘locate’ the parts of the brain responsible for mental phenomena such as aesthetic appreciation, religious experience, love, depression and so on, but they haven’t found a part of the brain associated with our underlying sense of self. Therefore, they feel justified in concluding that this doesn’t exist. ‘Ghosts don’t Exist’, says the Ghost There are many problems with the attempt to ‘reduce’ our sense of self to brain activity. This is related to ‘hard problem’ of explaining the origins of conscious experience – so-called to distinguish it from the ‘easy problems’ of mental abilities and functions such as memory, concentration and attention. Whilst we might be able to understand these phenomena, the problem of how the brain might produce consciousness is on a completely different level. The brain is just a soggy clump of grey matter – how could that soggy mass possibly give rise to the richness and depth of consciousness? To think that it could is a ‘category error’ – the brain and consciousness are entirely distinct phenomena, which can’t be explained in terms of each other. And on a more practical basis, after decades of intensive theorising and research, no-one has yet put forward any feasible explanation of how the brain might produce consciousness. The ‘hard problem’ seems completely insurmountable. There is a basic absurdity in these attempts to show that the ‘self’ is illusory. They always feature a self trying to prove that it doesn’t exist. They are caught in a loop. If the self is an illusion to begin with, how can we trust its judgements? It’s a bit like a ghost trying to prove that ghosts don’t exist. Perhaps it may be right, but its illusory nature doesn’t inspire confidence. Dennett and Blackmore are presuming that there is a kind of reliable, objective observer inside them which is able to pass judgement on consciousness – and that presumption contradicts their own arguments. That is the very thing whose existence they are trying to disprove. Related to this, there is a problem of subject/object confusion. All of these theories attempt to examine consciousness from the outside. They treat it like a botanist examining a flower, as an object to scrutinize and categorize. But of course, with consciousness there is no subject and no object. The subject is the object. You are consciousness. So it is fallacious to examine it as if it is something ‘other.’ Again, you are caught in a loop. You can’t get outside consciousness. And so any ‘objective’ pronouncements you make about are fallacious from the start. An interesting question to ponder is: why do human beings invest so much energy into trying to prove that they don’t exist? Why do scientists and philosophers seem so intent on proving that they themselves are illusions? Perhaps there is a kind of repressed suicidal impulse at work here. Perhaps the individuals in question experience a deep-rooted self-hatred and an impulse for self-destruction which, at conscious level, has been translated into an impulse to negate their own identity and existence. More likely, though, these views are symptom of the general nihilism of our culture, the collapse of values which has followed from materialistic science. The fact that these theories have become prevalent, despite being fallacious, shows how well they fit to the present ‘zeitgeist’. Subjective Investigation So does the self exist? Is there really anybody there inside your own mental space? I think the best way to answer the question is to take a different approach. Rather than attempting to analyse consciousness from the outside as if it is an object, the best approach is to embrace subjectivity, and delve into your own consciousness. Try meditation, for example. In deep meditation, you might find yourself in a state of complete mental quietness and emptiness, with no thoughts, no perceptions, no information processing, no concentration. In fact, this state can be seen as the ‘goal’ of meditation (at least according to some traditions). The philosopher Robert Forman has called it the ‘pure consciousness event’ – a state in which consciousness exists without content, and rests easefully within itself. I have experienced this state myself, and am familiar with its qualities. Paradoxically, although consciousness is empty, it has a quality of fullness too. It appears to be full of energy – a powerful energy which has a quality of well-being, or even bliss. (This is what Indian Vedanta philosophy describes as satchitananda – being-consciousness-bliss.) There is also a quality of spaciousness – somehow my own consciousness seems to become wider and larger, to spread beyond my own brain or body. This can lead to a sense of connection or even oneness – a feeling that my consciousness is merging with a force or energy which somehow seems fundamental to the world, or the cosmos. But most importantly in terms of my argument in this article, in these moments, one of the qualities of consciousness is a sense of ‘I’. There is still a sense of identity, even if this sense may be different to the identity of a normal state of consciousness. This identity does not feel separate or boundaried. It feels part of a greater unity, but still has a sense of I-ness. You could compare it to a wave having a sense of its own existence of a wave but at the same time being aware of itself as a part of the sea. There is still an ‘I’ which has awareness of itself and of its situation. From this point of view, it appears that consciousness or identity is not an illusion. In this state, there are no ‘memes’ and no streams of mental processes, but consciousness still appears to exist. I would therefore say that the sense of self is fundamental to us, from the deepest levels of our being. Of course, this fundamental sense of ‘I’ is acted on by all kinds environmental, social and psychological influences, and becomes ‘constructed’ to a large degree. You could compare it to how a Roman fort is built upon and expanded over centuries until eventually develops into a modern city. But there is a fundamental kernel of ‘I-ness’ which is always there, underlying all of the activity and all the construction