Q&A

Q. If there is no separate self, who is seeking enlightenment?

A. Just thoughts appearing about seeking, no seeker.

Q. If the ego is an illusion, who wants to get rid of it?

A. “Ego” is only a concept for thoughts stitching together a story of a separate someone. There’s nothing there to get rid of, and no one who could do it... it’s just thoughts appearing.

Q. Nothing belongs to me, because everything belongs to me.

A. Even the idea of “belonging” implies a possessor and a possessed. Without that split, it’s just what’s appearing, with no owner anywhere.

Q. Why is it that when you pray for refuge from a particular vice, the desire for that vice immediately gets stronger?

A. Because the prayer assumes a someone who must resist, that assumption creates the tension that amplifies it. Asking for refuge strengthens the imagined controller, and the imagined controller strengthens the pull of what it fears.

Q. Procreating is an ego trip, sustaining the illusion of corporeality.

A. This assumes a doer choosing to procreate or not. Life unfolds the way it unfolds, and the mind’s radical claims about “not doing it” just build another ego around the idea of avoiding ego.

Q. How to decrease suffering using Non Dual teaching (not neo advaita) ?

A. Nondual teaching doesn’t reduce suffering by fixing it. It turns the attention to the one who claims to be suffering. When you look for that “self,” there’s nothing there. Without a sufferer, the suffering loses its center.

Q. How do you differentiate between what is "Ego" and what is the authentic self?

Seems a bit subjective to me unless there is an objective standard.

A. The ego is just the passing thoughts claiming to be the one who is thinking, choosing, doing, becoming. 

The “authentic self” isn’t another version of you, it’s just the awareness that’s already here before the thought says “me.”  

Ego is whatever appears as a story about you... awareness is whatever is noticing the story.

Q. What is ego? Identification with the body is ego.

A. Ego is just thoughts tied together into the sense of a “me” in a story. The body that supposedly belongs to that “me” is just another appearance. When those thoughts aren’t taken as a center, there’s no ego left to point to.

Q. Awareness requires two. The one who is aware and that which he is aware of.

A. Awareness doesn’t require two. The “one who is aware” and the “thing he’s aware of” both show up in the same seeing… whole, already complete, not divided into a knower and a known... the split is only a thought.