Meditation exercise on "separate me"

[Stranger]

I invite us all to set aside philosophical and metaphysical considerations, look at the "separate me" issue from purely phenomenological perspective and try this meditative exercise. I've been doing this for years and still do it regularly (I'm still working on deconstructing my egoic complex residing in subconscious around the sense of "separate me").

During the daytime activities we regularly get entangled in situations where we feel insecure, offended, hostile, humiliated, depressed, greedy, competitive or get involved in any other similar scenarios (let's call it event X). We usually blame others or life circumstances for that and leave these situations unexamined. Other situations may involve us feeling self-aggravated and superior to other beings, including feelings of intellectually or spiritually more superior or advanced (the "enlightened ego" phenomenon).

So, in the evening or next morning let's reproduce exactly step by step the event X and look at it phenomenologically re-living every arising and move of ideas, feelings and deeds, but look at it through the light of awareness with complete honesty and transparency. Here are the steps I usually go through:

1. Trace all the phenomena involved in the event X (ideas, feelings and deeds) - how they arose and linked to each other and the events of the situation.

2. Trace and realize how all these phenomena revolve and are founded on the foundation of the "separate me" sense-idea (which is also a phenomenon), how they all always pertain and causally linked to the "separate me". Realize how all these causal connections between these phenomena of the event X happened in our blind spot in unconscious without our awareness of how they actually relate to each other and the sense of "separate me".

3. Realize and remind yourself again that the "separate me" sense-idea is a complete mind-fabricated abstraction incoherent with reality. Trace and realize how the origin of this "separate me" sense-idea is rooted in and stems from the erroneous dualistic perception of reality where we perceive the world as a conglomerate of separate entities, separate selves and things, one of which is this sense-idea of "separate me" who is in the center of the "external" world experiencing it and acting in it as a "doer". Realize how this dualistic perception is related to the failure to experientially and intellectually realize the fundamental underlying Oneness of the Cosmic Organism behind the seeming diversity of forms.

4. Using imaginative cognition, imagine how the situation X would unfold if there would be no sense of "separate me". Realize that all the ideas, feelings and deeds of the event X would not have any ground and would not arise and happen if the sense of "separate me" would not be present. Imagine how we could be free from all this egoic reactivity and could become altruistic, compassionate and loving if we would experience oneness with all Cosmic Organism and all sentient beings and would not feel or think ourselves separate from it.

Most people do not realize how much most of their problems in individual and social life are related to and caused by the egoic complex maintained around the core sense-idea of "separate me". We always look for the problems and solutions somewhere else without realizing the role of the egoic complex around "separate me" while the "separate me" remains deep in unconscious in our blind spot and in the driving seat.

It is also useful to contemplate on how most of our social issues (wars, corruption, consumerism and mass media propaganda, economic inequalities, Earth pollution, conflicts in groups and between groups large and small, etc etc) can be traced to the human egotism and the "separate me" at the root of it. This is more intellectual exercise rather than phenomenological, yet still very instructive and useful to understand the picture and the problem on the larger humanity scale.

[Stranger]

PS: Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting to replace all other meditation methods and exercises that we might be doing according to our spiritual practice discipline, but only to include this suggested exercise in our meditative routine.

[Federica]

Thanks for the suggestion, Eugene.
As I see it, the reflection you propose is very useful, but it doesn't have to be dependent on a "separate self" conception.

It's the exercise of using everyday life experiences that make us feel anger, resentment, shame, pride, frustration, ect., as learning opportunities to reduce reactive mindset and behaviors, so that our feelings become less and less dictated by others and by situations. It's a work on feelings and emotions.

Surely a regular reflection on our patterns of reactivity as you describe can help develop emotional independence, balance, maturity, and strength. One becomes more stable and deliberate with feelings, and creates a peaceful atmosphere for oneself and others. The same reflection should also be directed towards others, to develop compassion and understanding for their reactive behaviors as well. The understanding needs to grow in both directions at once, I believe.

Somewhat in the spirit of the prerequisites for spiritual practice and tranquil self-observation listed in Knowledge of the higher worlds, I believe this is a good habit to develop a stable personality as solid foundation for spiritual practice. But I wouldn't consider it as a spiritual practice in strict sense.

[Stranger]

Thanks for the suggestion, Eugene.
As I see it, the reflection you propose is very useful, but it doesn't have to be dependent on a "separate self" conception.

It's the exercise of using everyday life experiences that make us feel anger, resentment, shame, pride, frustration, ect., as learning opportunities to reduce reactive mindset and behaviors, so that our feelings become less and less dictated by others and by situations. It's a work on feelings and emotions.

All you said is true, but it is not very efficient way (and I found it from my decades of practical trying to deal with these egoic issues in myself and people around), it is like trying to heal from a health issue by treating symptoms without addressing the root causes. The key is to realize by phenomenological investigation how these egoic emotions are actually causally related to and rooted in the "separate self" conception, and how the "separate self" conception in turn is rooted in our dualistic perception of reality (all of it happening in subconscious layers in our blind spot). It is experimental phenomenological study of spiritual science. Once we prove it to ourselves experimentally, we can better understand how to fix the problem of our egotism by unrooting its root causes.

[Federica]

Thanks for the suggestion, Eugene.
As I see it, the reflection you propose is very useful, but it doesn't have to be dependent on a "separate self" conception.

It's the exercise of using everyday life experiences that make us feel anger, resentment, shame, pride, frustration, ect., as learning opportunities to reduce reactive mindset and behaviors, so that our feelings become less and less dictated by others and by situations. It's a work on feelings and emotions.

All you said is true, but it is not very efficient way (and I found it from my decades of practical trying to deal with these egoic issues in myself and people around), it is like trying to heal from a health issue by treating symptoms without addressing the root causes. The key is to realize by phenomenological investigation how these egoic emotions are actually causally related to and rooted in the "separate self" conception, and how the "separate self" conception in turn is rooted in our dualistic perception of reality (all of it happening in subconscious layers in our blind spot). It is experimental phenomenological study of spiritual science. Once we prove it to ourselves experimentally, we can better understand how to fix the problem of our egotism by unrooting its root causes.

I'm all for investigating the "root causes" of phenomena, but this could also work as a motto, or convenient mind pattern to draw possibly arbitrary patterns of causation, as preferred. The way you use "Egoic issues" also sounds like an umbrella concept that means nothing other than "separate self", rather than something that needs healing. What really needs heeling is a whole array of forms of emotional reactivity and distress.

Additionally, that one unique factor - the separate self - is derived as the root cause of the whole spectrum of emotional problems seems a bit far-fetched. It makes much more sense to search for the root causes in individual personality and karma.

And I would suspect that entertaining a meditative practice focused on how our (and everyone's) emotional distress is causally routed in a common factor at the level of humanity - in other words, conditioning the self to put our emotional reactivity on the back of IT the separate self - is not the safest thing to do. It could bring the focus away from deep self-investigation, onto investigation of the supposed nature of IT, because anyway it's ultimately not our individual fault, it's our individuality alltogether that is faulty. And so it's the fault of IT if we are egoic, separated, and suffering.

[Stranger]

I'm all for investigating the "root causes" of phenomena, but this could also work as a motto, or convenient mind pattern to draw possibly arbitrary patterns of causation, as preferred. The way you use "Egoic issues" also sounds like an umbrella concept that means nothing other than "separate self", rather than something that needs healing. What really needs heeling is a whole array of forms of emotional reactivity and distress.

Exactly, it is the whole array of issues, and the whole array needs to be healed. Every spiritual practice can be used as a motto if not used appropriately. But consider this analogy: a bodily health issue, for example, gluten allergy. It has a large range of negative symptoms and effects on the body, like poor sleep, headaches, skin allergies etc. All of these effects are equally important and all need to be addressed. One way is to try to treat every symptom as a problem to be fixed by itself, like take aspirin from headaches, sleeping pills from insomnia etc. Sure, that might alleviate the symptoms. But the best way to fix all of them is to find out the root cause - the gluten allergy - and stop consuming gluten.

Additionally, that one unique factor - the separate self - is derived as the root cause of the whole spectrum of emotional problems seems a bit far-fetched. It makes much more sense to search for the root causes in individual personality and karma.

Individual personality and karma shapes our specific patterns of reactivity. However, they all causally related to its root cause of separate self. Again, it is not so much a purely intellectual derivation, but rather a phenomenological investigation that reveals this causal connection.

Consider this: imagine you would magically wake up in the morning and find out that you have no sense of separate self whatsoever. Then you see someone insulting you. There may be some habitual karmic emotional reaction of feeling insulted, but it would have no ground to progress and lead to any reactive actions, because where is the "self" (the "you") who was insulted? It would be just like watching somebody insulting someone else in the room: it is not "you" who was insulted, why would you react then? So, if you continue living in this state of the absence of the sense of separate self, even those karmic patterns will go away after a while because they will disintegrate due to the absence of behavioral reinforcement. So, you can see how these egoic reactions are causally related to the sense-idea of separate self. Of course, this is only a thought experiment but I was suggesting to conduct more concrete phenomenological investigation of this causal connection.

And I would suspect that entertaining a meditative practice focused on how our (and everyone's) emotional distress is causally routed in a common factor at the level of humanity - in other words, conditioning the self to put our emotional reactivity on the back of IT the separate self - is not the safest thing to do. It could bring the focus away from deep self-investigation, onto investigation of the supposed nature of IT, because anyway it's ultimately not our individual fault, it's our individuality alltogether that is faulty. And so it's the fault of IT if we are egoic, separated, and suffering.

All we discuss here is nobody's fault, blaming is not an efficient way of solving problems. Also, this is about each of us spiritual health issues. There is no obligations or expectations, if anyone does not care or does not believe we are approaching it right or pointing at the root causes of the problem, that's totally fine. This is just an invitation to try for those who care, and if anyone cares, maybe it is still worth to try this investigation and find for themselves if this is true or not, and if it is true, then take appropriate measures for healing. But we can find many reasons for us not to do that if we don't want to deal with this mess.

[Stranger]

Here is another investigation I may suggest: observe (phenomenologically of course) how the egoic complex, the "ego", is cleverly manipulative. It does not want to be revealed and removed from the driving seat. It has a deeply rooted strive to survive and to have control of everything it can control (it's a control freak). Its most powerful strategy is to keep the individuated consciousness believing that the "separate self" (the self-identification of the ego) is real and important. What we are suggesting here is an exercise to reveal that the "self" is actually not real, it is a delusion and cognitive mistake. But for the ego to admit it and agree with it would be a suicide. It will do everything that is in its powers to convince us not to go along this route, and everything possible to distract us. And it will fight fiercely for its survival.

So, it is not possible for the ego-separate-self to fight itself and break free from itself. One of its clever strategies though is to become an "enlightened self" and to masquerade into a "higher self" transcending the "lower self" and ascending to higher spiritual levels. That is another trap in spiritual practice. So, as long as we hold on to the belief that the separate self is real, the ego identified with this self will always find ways to transmute and survive in different forms or taking different masks. The only way around it is to completely transcend the ego-separate-self and ascend to the nondual levels of cognition from where the nature of separate self as just an incoherent idea will become obvious.

What Christ showed us is that the only way to the Kingdom of God is crucifying our "self", our ego, and resurrecting as a new man into the nondual state of consciousness free from the ego-self. There is no other way around, there is no way for the ego-separate-self to enter into the Kingdom of God.

If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me (Matthew 16:24)
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:25)
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20)

[Federica]

I'm all for investigating the "root causes" of phenomena, but this could also work as a motto, or convenient mind pattern to draw possibly arbitrary patterns of causation, as preferred. The way you use "Egoic issues" also sounds like an umbrella concept that means nothing other than "separate self", rather than something that needs healing. What really needs heeling is a whole array of forms of emotional reactivity and distress.

Exactly, it is the whole array of issues, and the whole array needs to be healed. Every spiritual practice can be used as a motto if not used appropriately. But consider this analogy: a bodily health issue, for example, gluten allergy. It has a large range of negative symptoms and effects on the body, like poor sleep, headaches, skin allergies etc. All of these effects are equally important and all need to be addressed. One way is to try to treat every symptom as a problem to be fixed by itself, like take aspirin from headaches, sleeping pills from insomnia etc. Sure, that might alleviate the symptoms. But the best way to fix all of them is to find out the root cause - the gluten allergy - and stop consuming gluten.

Additionally, that one unique factor - the separate self - is derived as the root cause of the whole spectrum of emotional problems seems a bit far-fetched. It makes much more sense to search for the root causes in individual personality and karma.

Individual personality and karma shapes our specific patterns of reactivity. However, they all causally related to its root cause of separate self. Again, it is not so much a purely intellectual derivation, but rather a phenomenological investigation that reveals this causal connection.

Consider this: imagine you would magically wake up in the morning and find out that you have no sense of separate self whatsoever. Then you see someone insulting you. There may be some habitual karmic emotional reaction of feeling insulted, but it would have no ground to progress and lead to any reactive actions, because where is the "self" (the "you") who was insulted? It would be just like watching somebody insulting someone else in the room: it is not "you" who was insulted, why would you react then? So, if you continue living in this state of the absence of the sense of separate self, even those karmic patterns will go away after a while because they will disintegrate due to the absence of behavioral reinforcement. So, you can see how these egoic reactions are causally related to the sense-idea of separate self. Of course, this is only a thought experiment but I was suggesting to conduct more concrete phenomenological investigation of this causal connection.

And I would suspect that entertaining a meditative practice focused on how our (and everyone's) emotional distress is causally routed in a common factor at the level of humanity - in other words, conditioning the self to put our emotional reactivity on the back of IT the separate self - is not the safest thing to do. It could bring the focus away from deep self-investigation, onto investigation of the supposed nature of IT, because anyway it's ultimately not our individual fault, it's our individuality alltogether that is faulty. And so it's the fault of IT if we are egoic, separated, and suffering.

All we discuss here is nobody's fault, blaming is not an efficient way of solving problems. Also, this is about each of us spiritual health issues. There is no obligations or expectations, if anyone does not care or does not believe we are approaching it right or pointing at the root causes of the problem, that's totally fine. This is just an invitation to try for those who care, and if anyone cares, maybe it is still worth to try this investigation and find for themselves if this is true or not, and if it is true, then take appropriate measures for healing. But we can find many reasons for us not to do that if we don't want to deal with this mess.

Eugene, can you not feel the immediate, sweet respite and alleviation from the heaviness of responsibility that we are rewarded with, as soon as we suggest the thought: All your problems and suffering are on the illusory entity “separate self”? It’s an escape route. One should follow the intuition “it’s too good to be true” but we are so longing for immediate relief, that instead, we take it, we welcome the relief, and we conveniently focus all our attention not on how to work with our reactivity, but on how to knock down the “separate self”.


This relief is what we are after and indeed, we get it with this meditation, an immediate but fake exoneration of responsibility. That is the addictive character of this ‘meditation'. The message is:
“Dear practitioner, let me put you immediately at ease, it’s not us who harbor any issue, fault, or responsibility, it’s the separate self. It’s all because of it, OK? And it’s the same for all of us. So let’s fight the separate self and liberate ourselves from it, because all the reactivity, egoic patterns, and all suffering are because of it. And the separate self is not us. No, no, we are pure Consciousness. So all the ugly stuff is on the separate self, and all the beautiful stuff is what we really are. So let’s integrate that now “experientially”.


How do you think one can take responsibility for self-improvement with these premises? How do we find the strength to work hard at recognizing weaknesses, uncovering the subconscious patterns of reactivity, when we open this escape route and regularly reinforce it in our soul? Unfortunately, the inevitable effect will be zero motivation to put down the real work, zero responsibility, zero results in terms of spiritual development. Only a sweet but illusory soul uplifting effect, that in fact perpetuates the problems.

[Stranger]

Eugene, can you not feel the immediate, sweet respite and alleviation from the heaviness of responsibility that we are rewarded with, as soon as we suggest the thought: All your problems and suffering are on the illusory entity “separate self”? It’s an escape route. One should follow the intuition “it’s too good to be true” but we are so longing for immediate relief, that instead, we take it, we welcome the relief, and we conveniently focus all our attention not on how to work with our reactivity, but on how to knock down the “separate self”.


This relief is what we are after and indeed, we get it with this meditation, an immediate but fake exoneration of responsibility. That is the addictive character of this ‘meditation'. The message is:
“Dear practitioner, let me put you immediately at ease, it’s not us who harbor any issue, fault, or responsibility, it’s the separate self. It’s all because of it, OK? And it’s the same for all of us. So let’s fight the separate self and liberate ourselves from it, because all the reactivity, egoic patterns, and all suffering are because of it. And the separate self is not us. No, no, we are pure Consciousness. So all the ugly stuff is on the separate self, and all the beautiful stuff is what we really are. So let’s integrate that now “experientially”.


How do you think one can take responsibility for self-improvement with these premises? How do we find the strength to work hard at recognizing weaknesses, uncovering the subconscious patterns of reactivity, when we open this escape route and regularly reinforce it in our soul? Unfortunately, the inevitable effect will be zero motivation to put down the real work, zero responsibility, zero results in terms of spiritual development. Only a sweet but illusory soul uplifting effect, that in fact perpetuates the problems.

First, the "separate self" is not improvable, it's a catch-22, the ego cannot improve itself, it can only become "enlightened ego"

Second, the "separate self" is a lie, it is a delusion, it is a psychosis of the soul. Would you say that a person who wants to heal from a psychosis wants an "easy relief", wants to "escape from responsibility"? No, they just want to be healthy.

Third, the real spiritual development only starts once a soul is healed from this psychosis of "separate self", this is where real constructive work starts and real results will come. As I said, it is a futile effort to improve symptoms of a decease while the root cause remains not addressed. Until the healing from psychosis happens, all spiritual development and real work should be targeted exactly to the healing of the psychosis. And that work is not easy, if you think that it is an "easy escape", you are mistaking. Do not underestimate the power of the "separate-self" ego-delusion.

And forth, I'm obliged to answer your questions, but I'm not supposed to write here because Ashvin sent me away from the forum to practice for 3-6 months, so please let me go

[AshvinP]

Eugene, can you not feel the immediate, sweet respite and alleviation from the heaviness of responsibility that we are rewarded with, as soon as we suggest the thought: All your problems and suffering are on the illusory entity “separate self”? It’s an escape route. One should follow the intuition “it’s too good to be true” but we are so longing for immediate relief, that instead, we take it, we welcome the relief, and we conveniently focus all our attention not on how to work with our reactivity, but on how to knock down the “separate self”.


This relief is what we are after and indeed, we get it with this meditation, an immediate but fake exoneration of responsibility. That is the addictive character of this ‘meditation'. The message is:
“Dear practitioner, let me put you immediately at ease, it’s not us who harbor any issue, fault, or responsibility, it’s the separate self. It’s all because of it, OK? And it’s the same for all of us. So let’s fight the separate self and liberate ourselves from it, because all the reactivity, egoic patterns, and all suffering are because of it. And the separate self is not us. No, no, we are pure Consciousness. So all the ugly stuff is on the separate self, and all the beautiful stuff is what we really are. So let’s integrate that now “experientially”.


How do you think one can take responsibility for self-improvement with these premises? How do we find the strength to work hard at recognizing weaknesses, uncovering the subconscious patterns of reactivity, when we open this escape route and regularly reinforce it in our soul? Unfortunately, the inevitable effect will be zero motivation to put down the real work, zero responsibility, zero results in terms of spiritual development. Only a sweet but illusory soul uplifting effect, that in fact perpetuates the problems.

First, the "separate self" is not improvable, it's a catch-22, the ego cannot improve itself, it can only become "enlightened ego"

Second, the "separate self" is a lie, it is a delusion, it is a psychosis of the soul. Would you say that a person who wants to heal from a psychosis wants an "easy relief", wants to "escape from responsibility"? No, they just want to be healthy.

Third, the real spiritual development only starts once a soul is healed from this psychosis of "separate self", this is where real constructive work starts and real results will come. As I said, it is a futile effort to improve symptoms of a decease while the root cause remains not addressed. Until the healing from psychosis happens, all spiritual development and real work should be targeted exactly to the healing of the psychosis. And that work is not easy, if you think that it is an "easy escape", you are mistaking. Do not underestimate the power of the "separate-self" ego-delusion.

And forth, I'm obliged to answer your questions, but I'm not supposed to write here because Ashvin sent me away from the forum to practice for 3-6 months, so please let me go

You can write here all you want. I was just saying there is no point in me discussing spiritual science with you until you make the firm commitment to learn about it first, if you are so interested, through practice and study. Until then we are simply discussing your concept of SS and every attempt we make to orient that concept in a deeper direction is brushed past with 'agreement', so we can go back to discussing what you prefer to discuss.