As promised, I am updating the 'How to Look' section of the blog. It has been long overdue an overhaul and finally I am getting round to it. I'm afraid that it is unfinished but I am going to post up the sections on my blog as they are done, and they will be 'stickied' on the how to look tab found at the top of the homepage.

At least then, I hope I can get posting something useful instead of disappearing for 6 months. Once this is completed I will overhaul the thought experiments and then I will be back to posting. This will probably mean that I will have to disappear for 3 months or so of the summer. However, I hope to find time between barbeques and late night drinking sessions to get it finished, and I also hope that it is worthwhile. 

There is an introduction to this piece here but I expect you will likely have already read it.

How to Look

It was customary in the past for me to give guidance on beginning investigation in the wrong form. I was always of the mindset that one needed to drop all their presuppositions and try and start the investigation from scratch. 

The idea being that we accept we are starting from a position of delusion in an investigation, and then we discard all our prior knowledge so that we can start all over again. Then, the task was to build up an accurate picture derived from phenomenological enquiry. 

However, I have come to the view that this was a foolish endeavour.

In hindsight, I was correct that we have to accept that we are starting out from a position where everything is distorted. However, it is not as though we can just abandon our prior knowledge and not let it influence what we are doing right now. We are already deeply embedded within a framework of concepts and a culture that already presupposes we think about things in a certain way.

The notion that people could suspend their beliefs and assumptions temporarily and try and build a new picture independently from the modes in which we think is absurd.

The mind is already conditioned to think in prescribed ways and to try and drop the frame of reference within which we investigate is impossible. Thus, the correct starting position entails that we accept we are starting from a position of delusion and we are going to have to investigate the assumptions that we are all already interwoven, and embedded within.

In summary then, the key is that we are going to have to investigate those assumptions and witness our own dishonesty first hand. Metaphorically speaking, we want to remove the rose tinted spectacles that deceive us.

Our investigation means we are going to have to turn over every stone and look at the logic underpinning of our assertions, and look at our direct experience to discover if our ideas have any traction. 

It is, in part, a case of showing our preconceptions to be uncertain, and then looking at real life to try and see what is really happening.

We need to be challenging our cherished opinions and common sense taken for granted understandings and assumptions. If you are not challenging these ideas then you are merely framing any new ideas within a framework of prior assumptions, which makes one no better than the lowly species of theist.

These people are shining examples of the most wretched kind of dishonesty, which is the inability to even question or challenge their framework of thinking. They simply ignore contradictory facts or try to warp them to fit in with their world view. You will witness, first hand, the way in which you have been subtly doing this all your life.

It must be remarked here that many western folk, who have far greater intellectual faculties than I, also fit this pattern. Dishonesty is not the provenance of the vulgar by any means, as it infects many of the narrative accounts we believe. If you can spot when you are engaging in the kinds of patterns we are going to outline, then that gives you a head start.

It is the endeavour of any fair enquirer to concern themselves with discovering the truth and that entails not listening to any claim, that I or others make, until you have challenged the logic and, most importantly, verified it experientially by looking.

It is certainly not enough just to utilise sound logical reasoning if we are merely using the preconceptions and assumptions we have been burdened with all our lives. The reason you are here is for looking to see what this 'self', you think you are, could possibly be.

Even if this is not your intention, if you follow this process you will undergo a radical deconstruction of what you took for granted as true - this in itself can be quite liberating.

Where to begin

Part of the problem in starting an investigation boiled down to the fact that the concept looking at real life appears to be quite vague. I tried to explain this in the past but found it very difficult. Quite often I would write the word LOOK in forum posts repeatedly, to try and hammer home the fact that one needs to look at real life.

The simple truth is that looking is simply an honest glimpse of real life. This insight of Anatta is simply attained by a laser focus on the question of what does the word 'me' refer to in real life? If you can look honestly for a few seconds that is all it takes for the web of deceit to shatter.

Maxi Jazz (lead singer of Faithless) came out with a good quote in his lyrics:

"You don't need eyes to see, you need vision".

That sums it up quite well really, you need to look with your  vision, as such.

At this point you're probably going to be asking yourself what the hell is this 'vision' and what on earth is he referring to?

Allow me to have a go at trying to explain this to you right now in these posts.

Beginning an investigation

JFL - Just f**king Look

Does that seem a bit clearer now?

No, I thought not! Don't worry though, you are in the same boat as everyone who starts out on this journey. It is very difficult to grasp what we actually mean by looking, however, the best way is just to get stuck in and give it a go.

It seems inordinately strange to look at first, by definition, as we are usually going about the hurly burly of our everyday lives, looking at the world and monitoring our thoughts. 

Surely in this respect we are already looking?

If this was the case then we would have no need to get you to scrutinise your own experience or tell you to Just F**king LOOK. The real problem is that you have never tried to look in your whole life. If you can take an honest look at real life for just a few seconds, that is all you need to do, and you will see through the illusion of self.

We are not talking about some magical looking or esoteric process here either. We are talking about seeing the self for what it is: an illusion. When you are done with the process you will clearly know that 'you' refers to nothing that can be discovered in experience. It is merely a habitual inference that has no correlate in real life.

We start out from a position where we are embedded within cultural practices, social conventions, and ways of doing things. To start from here and then begin mulling over the possibility of your own existence seems tantamount to madness at first. It contradicts your cultural practices and if you were to tell someone else that you don't exist, it is certainly counter intuitive in the strongest sense possible.

Your way of doing things has been learned from experience, and this includes resting your world view on certain preconceptions and assumptions that we were all taught from a young age.

However, your way of doing things has also led you to this moment right here and now. 

You are here because you are sick of making yourself suffer. You are here because the story you have been told doesn't add up. 

You are here because you feel different from all the others, even if you have friends and family around you. 

You are here because others in society lack the vision to see that they are simply following preprogrammed patterns of consumer consumption, and are subject to relentless psychological manipulation by the media and advertisers. You are here because you are a sick of all the vacuous bullsh*t in your daily grind. You are here because your curiosity led you to this place and deep down in your heart, you already know full well it is all a facade.

You are here because you want out.

The reality of Experience >

I did not want to spend too much time covering old ground but felt it necessary to put the past firmly behind me. I want to discuss the problems of the old approach and convincingly answer this question.

“What is the difference between this approach I am now working on and that of Ruthless Truth & Truth Strike?”

Skeletons in the Closet

When I say “there is no you”, what I really mean is that there is no division between experiencer and experience.

It is perhaps more unpalatable but not so difficult to comprehend if we consider it in this way. What we think of as 'me' or 'ourself' is an entity that directs the bodies actions and thinking. However, this is an illusion as it actually happens automatically, life lives itself. There is no entity separate from experience calling the shots in what we perceive as our life. Our experience consists of a modelling process that allows the brain to think abstractly. This modelling process actually constructs what we call 'I' or 'ourselves' through language and other phenomena, and is simply a representation or 'self model' of a person.

What this actually means is the person that we think we are is simply a series of thoughts produced by the brain. In other words what you conceive of as 'me', or 'yourself', is nothing more than a thought.

To outline our conceptions, if we had our five senses and our visceral (felt) bodily experiences removed what would be left? Us westerners commonly like to think for the most part we are some entity, or thinking thing, that exists independently from the external world. This is known as dualism and most often we hold the belief that we are a soul of some sort, especially if we have developed our own particular belief through religious and spiritual channels. If you are a scientist like myself you might hold to a more materialistic explanation.

Given that 'no self' might be unpalatable for some people it is worth mentioning this is a widely accepted philosophical position given numerous support by philosophers and neuroscientists. A few books worth checking out here are 'The ego tunnel' - Thomas Metzinger, 'The Ego Trick' - Julian Baggini, and 'The Self Illusion' - Bruce Hood. There is also a book called the “User Illusion” - Tor Nørretranders which explores consciousness and the idea that it is a simulation. These go in to a lot of depth on the subject and dispense and replicate many of the counterarguments that I have used in the past, as well as present many new ones.

If your goal on this site is to realise Anatta, I would suggest that you don't fill your head with concepts as this makes exploring this phenomena more difficult. This is for the simple reason that you are more prone to conceptualise about the phenomena you experience. I realise that a degree of intellectual understanding is absolutely necessary, however, a balance needs to be achieved.

In an ideal world someone would come here naïve and pick up the tools to test the claim and then do the reading I outlined above. However, this is far from an ideal world and we need some degree of convincing that this insight is possible before we look in to the possibility. This takes us to a fundamental problem with the RT and TS methodologies, which I will highlight shortly.

The Pillars of the Acropolis

It was back in 2010 that a juncture was made between this conventional philosophy of self as illusion, and what came to be known as Ruthless Truth, and subsequently Truth Strike. A British philosopher called Ciaran Healy managed to find in his investigations that it was possible to recognise this illusion of self by looking deeply in to our direct experience. This is known properly as phenomenology in academic circles, we just called it 'looking'. Essentially, the idea of these sites was to facilitate an intense phenomenological investigation which could rapidly yield the insight of Anatta. There are various groups who still guide people through this process, such as Liberation Unleashed, and Hall of Mirrors which can be found on the web.

When this experience of Anatta was initially realised, it provided the means to disrupt negative thought patterns and bought great understanding to the nature of reality. At this point in time we genuinely believed Ciaran had discovered the psychological trigger for enlightenment and that we had become enlightened. From that point on we mistakenly believed we were responsible for waking the world up from its delusion. We believed we had discovered the key to ending suffering in the world and we had a duty to humanity to show this to everyone. However, we later discovered that this is what the Buddhists call an 'arising and passing' event, that is simply known in their doctrine as 'Anatta', which translates as 'not self'.

It is now pertinent to discuss why the RT and TS organisations failed, and investigate the premises that they relied on to assert their arguments and conduct their methodologies. The ethos of these organisations was to help seekers realise this same insight of Anatta. This was done through the process of introspection and getting the seeker to question the presuppositions that they logically held through a phenomenological investigation. While some people managed to complete the process, many others failed, and many more still, tried to argue about whether this insight was possible without even bothering to do any investigation.

It was the custom at the time to tear their arguments apart and make piercing attacks against their identity. This was known as harpooning because they could not leave the argument with their vanity intact and this trapped them in dialogue. This was a deliberate ploy to ensure that they could not escape as their vanity would not allow them. This allowed us to lance out their delusion and show how they were subject to incoherent thinking patterns, in the hope that they would actually notice them and realise they were deluding themselves. This was very effective when we used to troll forums and trapped people there in front of their peers. There was always someone who would take the bait simply on the principle that they could rubbish someones argument to make themselves look good in front of their peers. What happened was that it would end up in a real mess as they frantically tried to reinforce their delusion.

The illusion of self centres around how our self model is perceived by other people. By driving an iron stake right through their vanity, they could not bear to see their image shattered, and they would desperately fight to maintain this illusion to themselves and their peers. This would cause all kind of incoherent excuses to come out in desperation and they would always launch personal attacks against us. We would seize on this and highlight this to the victim and everyone on the forum. In this sense, there was no escape them as we tried to humiliate them into looking at the truth.

This spectacularly backfired though. Most often we alienated ourselves by trying to impose our viewpoint on others. Most of the time their friends would rally round to try and support them. Even though we demolished their arguments, they would simply point out our aggressive tone and use this as a justification not to look. We used to justify this by calling it tough love and for those few we managed to free it seemed worth it initially. We believed that if we could free enough people from their false self, this movement would take on a life of its own and we could realistically end suffering in the world.

Lofty ambitions, indeed. However, this sent a massive wave of negativity through many spirituality forums, and throughout the internet. In this sense these organisations have a bad name and are infamous in many circles, as are the very people who used to run and operate them. This would include yours truly. Yes, I regret some of it but I think there are only positives to be gained from this point onwards, and I have only the desire to explore further and cast what we have discovered in to a tool set that anyone can pick up and use.

There was a problem underpinning the entire process of all these endeavours all along, that no amount of ad hominem attacks could cover over. Essentially, the premise of what we were doing was claiming to people that they could introspect in to their own minds, and gain a realisation that would allow them to get a handle on their suffering to a degree. This sounds like a rather miraculous happening and here it is plain to see that not only did it require a degree of belief in the concept of no self, it also required that there could never be any kind of objective proof whether this was possible. Not to mention that the idea of no self confounds peoples beliefs and runs contrary to the Advaitan teachings of true self.

Testimonials

'[N]o testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.' (Hume, 1748)

To outline the first problem vividly we can start to look at the faults in this aspect related to what constituted a proof of the Anatta claim.

To start with the claim that there is no self sounds strange and when one starts extolling the said benefits this may sound to good to be true. In fact we could go as far as to claim it is somewhat miraculous. Now what evidence can we present to assert the proposition 'there is no you'?

All we can ever present is a demolition of arguments for the existence of the self, and a set of testimonies that this insight is possible. When we come to rest on testimony we are immediately in trouble. We can run Hume's argument against miracles here and effectively demolish any such notions of testimony ever being reliable. It would be no more absurd to suppose that on the third day Jesus arose from the dead by forming a belief based on the testimony of the apostles. Since much of the early work on these forums was not done with any methodology, this renders it invalid from a scientific perspective even if we were to produce phenomenological accounts from each person. There may be some value in revisiting this area but since I have no need to try and demonstrate it to anyone, it seems redundant to any pressing lines of enquiry I shall endeavour to follow in future.

We are naturally inclined to be suspicious of any testimony that is not agreeable with our experience and this is why RT and TS were always facing an uphill struggle. It is of little wonder we could only resort to ad hominem insults and trying to destroy peoples credibility when they would not look. This led us to try and shock people in to looking with brute force tactics. However, when you see people acting in such a manner you should be as concerned as when you have a pack of rabid Jehova's witnesses banging on your door to present you with the 'truth'. All this ad hominem stuff ever did was undermine any of the work we tried to do and failure was the only possible outcome.

The Belief in 'No Self'

'A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence' (Hume, 1739)

To compound matters further, in order for someone to investigate Anatta it is necessary that there is a belief in the possibility of realising it. It should be of little wonder that much of the work that had been done was founded on convincing someone they should investigate this area. Without a belief in at least the possibility that this insight can be realised, then it is clear that there would be no such investigation. This principle was highlighted many times by people who came to these forums with no intention of looking.

Of course, Buddhist's and other spiritual sources claim Anatta is possible, but again we are back on the shaky grounds of testimony. For this reason, we had this two pronged problem to deal with where we had to encourage the idea of possibility, and have only recourse to testimony and showing how common arguments for the existence of the self were false. After this point, it was only possible to reach a subjective truth of no self by looking, which is problematic in of itself. Ultimately this is not demonstrable in any objective capacity, unless you actually do the grunt work of looking. Then the problem becomes how do we know that this experience is possible?

Alas, words escape me here.

From my silence it is reasonable to conclude that I have no argument to support the former chain of reasoning. You may choose to examine your experience or turn your nose up at the idea of Anatta, safe in the knowledge that I cannot give you any logical justification for exploring the possibility. I have tried in vain to find a solution to logically explain Anatta in the past but I am afraid it is a fools errand. It seems all I can do is lay out all the arguments for the self that do not work, and then cast them as signs that mark out the wrong path.

I will point to the possibility of Anatta but I can only point to Buddhist doctrine and Metzinger et al's claims. I agree with the aspect of Anatta being realisable but I am not a subscriber to everything Bhuddhism says on the whole, since it is riddled with its own dogmas. I will be challenging arguments for the self which are grounded in fiction and I will also argue that qualitative methodologies such as phenomenology follow the scientific method and are valid methodologies. In this sense we are going to stay within the bounds of the scientific method but I realise the burden is on me to argue for the validity of phenomenological enquiry. This is not a position that is widely accepted although it has started making inroads in some circles of academia, especially in social psychology.

Of course, in the RT days we were enthusiastic about promoting Anatta regardless as there was no doubt in our minds about Anatta being true. However, we were working against these problems from the beginning. There is no doubt that without a solid logical argument to present this case it would always be suspect in the mind of a fair enquirer and this would mean people would be put off the idea. Many more were put off the idea when we remember the vile tirades that RT were famed for, and the negativity I bought to the table at TS. This was why many walked away or did not bother investigating. All we had really achieved was to put people off something that could become a force for good. That is why I have no desire to ever go back to any endeavour that is based on a format of 'liberating' people.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam

'The connection between these propositions is not intuitive. There is required a medium, which may enable the mind to draw such an inference, if indeed it be drawn by reasoning and argument.' (Hume, 1739)

Any arguments for the self, when conceived to be an independent entity from experience, are incoherent and based in circular logic. However, the conclusion 'no self' can be perceived to boil down to the argument from ignorance fallacy. In the same way that we cannot prove that God does not exist, we cannot prove the self does not exist. There is no way to prove the non-existence of some particular thing. Whilst no coherent argument can be formulated to argue for the existence of the self we cannot show somethings non-exsistence.

Whilst this apparent absurdity meant that many people challenged this idea of no self, from our perspective it was not a case of seeing that there was no self that existed which would be clearly absurd. I think this was one of the most misunderstood parts of any of our work. The realisation of Anatta meant 'no self' was simply a real consequence of our truly understanding this aspect of reality. To gain this insight is simply a matter of seeing the phenomena of what we would call 'me' or 'self' for what it really is, which is this.

An illusion propagated by language, and belief.

What this problem always boiled down to in our explanations and discourse, was simply a misunderstanding of language and its inherent tendency of creating dualistic notions of persons separate from the body. It was far easier and less confusing to transmit the message in the form of there is 'no you', or there is 'no self'. This meant there was no ambiguity and allowed someone to be laser focussed on their investigation. Any other conception clouds matters for seekers in my opinion, and for this reason we had many people attack us nihilists who denied our own existence. The one thing I can be certain of is that there is experience happening, and in this experience there is a self model that produces a real illusion of self.

The truth is, the appearance of self is simply constructed from a set of feedback processes that tricks the brain in to believing the conscious 'projection' or 'self model' is a thinking thing independent from the body. This trick makes the psychological experience of phenomena seem like it is happening to an entity independent of the sensory apparatus itself. I tricks us in to thinking the feeling of pain is happening to us, and we are an entity that has conscious volition over the body. In reality there is just the experience of pain and of a story about being responsible for the bodies actions before and after the manner.

The realisation of Anatta is simply a pattern interrupt to the faculties of thinking that maintain this illusion. This does not mean these patterns do not continue. It simply means that there is direct understanding of the illusory nature of the self, which cannot believed to be an entity separate from experience any longer.

The brains volition over the body, as you will discover if you investigate is mostly unconscious and we can demonstrate this scientifically through phenomenological investigation. However, this does not mean that conscious decision making does not feedback in to the process of volition. In fact this is one of the reasons why this illusion is so convincing.

It is clear that the degree of feedback involved with phenomena that we experience, and that of which we have no appearance of volition, is complex. Whilst I do not subscribe to an unconscious mind as traditionally conceived, it is evident that we are not conscious of many of the brains processes, and for this reason I have labelled it in this manner.

Thought, no doubt, does feedback in to these processes and we see this clearly evidenced with 'seeing as' influencing our perception. I wrote an article last year which treats of this phenomenon more fully, but a magic eye picture should serve as an example here. Given that thought clearly does influence the bodies faculties, it is here where we like to insert the thinker, which we refer to as 'I' or 'me'.

At this point, we believe we are some entity calling the shots that has concrete existence separate from these processes, however, this 'I' is completely illusory. When we investigate conscious mental processes, we see them actually happening of their own accord. These cannot be manipulated by a 'self' since when we investigate the conscious mechanisms of experience, we discover that they are autonomous from the illusory story of the self model. In this sense the phenomena of self hood is a real phenomenon that exists in real life, and is probably responsible for facilitating what we know as civilisation. However, it is certainly not 'you', nor is it a tangible, separate, object in reality that plays a causal role in driving the bodies actions or cognitions.

Like the water in the mirage is a real illusion, so is that which you call 'me'.

The internal dialogue, or internal chatter we are aware of that constructs our life story is simply a metaphor of human agency doing what it does best, which is living life. I do want to focus on how believing in this evolving metaphor of our lives can cause us problems but for now, we should be satisfied that this simple misunderstanding was the root cause of many arguments. To put it simply, realising no self is simply coming to the direct understanding that the mental phenomena that constructs our notions of being a person in the world, simply points to nothing tangible in real life, it is just a story. Life lives itself and it always has done We can wake up to this by investigating it or choose to ignore it.

From here, we could launch into arguments such as 'I' refers to the brain, 'I' refers to the body, and this is where we used to get people to look and investigate, in order to discover these counter arguments are false through experience. It is the quizzical nature we have to solve this puzzle that attracted people to the idea of no self, before the madness of RT & TS ensued.

The Great Eastern

“I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement”. (Hume, 1739)

We can also point to further problems here, when we consider the paradox of Eastern thinking. To outline this briefly I will simply state the apparent contradictions that the Buddhist doctrine of Anatta faces with Advaitan conceptions.

The claims 'no self' and 'true self' are contradictory at first glance.

However, upon investigating they are simply two different linguistic constructions of one and the same 'thing', or more appropriately 'no-thing'. In this sense, Advaiatan's subscribe to the conception that the true self is all that is, which is equivalent to Brahman or god. This is a fundamentally distinct conception of God and bears no resemblance to the monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam etc as it is a pantheist conception of god. Since Advaita is a religion, they point to the expression of existence as divine and this is what they mean by true self. There are various derivatives of this line of thinking, such as 'I' is the universal consciousness experiencing itself, or 'I' is the intelligent awareness, or the knowing hereness, or whatever spiritual concept you prefer, if that is your inclination.

The Buddhist's conception in comparison seems to be more nihilistic. When we say no self, we seem to be implicitly denying that there is any being that exists. Here though, we would appear to be denying the existence of Brahman or all that is, and our spiritual concepts. However, if we take this to mean that there is no dualism between experience and experiencer, as I explained earlier in the post, then there is no reason to deny that that there is no expression of existence which manifests as our experience. Advaitan's refer to consciousness as the true self and Bhuddist's refer to there being no self separate from Buddha nature. In this sense there is no contradiction here, they are two different linguistic constructions of one and the same thing.

Bhudda nature and true self can be taken to mean one and the same thing, although they are conceived differently in their respective doctrines.

Whether these two doctrines agree about the existence of God seems to be a moot point here. What we can see is they are pointing at two different conceptions of the self, and really there is no paradox. However, what used to happen back in the days of RT and TS was that we used to have big arguments with Advaitan folks, about the status of the very proposition and the existence of self!

Considering we were both arguing about different things, it was little wonder that we found any common ground. The Advaitan doctrine implicitly presupposes true self, and it is of little wonder they found the no self proposition contrary to their religious beliefs. True self in Advaitan speak means universal consciousness, or God. So to say no self to them is inflammatory and contradictory, even though we mean something completely different with no self!

In this sense, it can be argued that both are relevant, they are the same thing for all intensive purposes. I certainly prefer the nihilistic conception to this day since it clearly delineates between how Westerners define the self as an 'individual agent', separate from the mental phenomena that appears in experience.

There are two choices that can be made here by a fair enquirer, when we look at spiritual and materialist doctrines. We can implicitly assume that reality is a divine expression, or we can point to a materialist doctrine which we know as science. Here, if we make a choice we are presupposing particular ontologies and we are in the grounds of metaphysics, which can only come from belief about the nature of reality.

I confess that I have no reason to believe one doctrine over the other in concrete terms, so in this sense, I am open minded until experience presents me with an impression to form a clear idea. Personally, I am satisfied that I will never have such an impression since this is forever beyond the realms of possible experience, and I can only ever form an obscure idea. We may come to know the properties or nature of reality but these are understandings derived from experience and not from the pages of any doctrine.

Having explained this conception, and the problems faced by these organisations I can now turn to the question I set myself at the beginning. How is what I am doing now any different?

Well, I hope that I have properly demonstrated the shaky grounds on which the RT and TS approaches were founded on. I cannot hope to build anything on the ruins of these approaches and as we abandon the ship wreck to rot away on the sands, we have a new world to explore. Clearly, I cannot present a logical argument for the insight of Anatta being realised, however, I can certainly provide the tools for the phenomonological investigation that we used. This represents the salvage from these stricken vessels, and then it is up to someone to take the steps afterwards to realise Anatta if they think it is something they want to do.

What have I just achieved here?

I have demolished any claim I might have to Anatta being demonstrable and relegated myself from a supposed teacher to an explorer of reality. Anything I do claim can be replicated on the solid grounds of experience and my claim to Annatta is simply my personal experience, which you are not required to agree or disagree with. I say the Buddhist's were correct in this aspect, it is up to you whether you want to explore the possibility beyond any phenomenological investigation you can do here. For my part, it is not an area I want to argue about any further as I am going to take it as a given that we are not an entity separate from experience.

I am just another fair enquirer on the bus of life, I feel all the bumps and discomforts, and the joys of stretching my legs and looking at the view when we pull over. I have my own delusion as does everyone else, I only hope that we can stay on the path and forge ahead to make new discoveries in human nature. There is no you in the conventional sense but you may feel free to call reality, life, or awareness 'I' if you really feel compelled to do so. There is no contradiction here and there never was a problem since it always boiled down to language.

We can construct different linguistic formulations for different purposes and there are many definitions that we can apply to the world 'self'. As long as we can agree on the formulation we are using in communication, we can avoid future problems. When I say 'self' you must take it to mean a thinking thing separate from, and pulling the strings of experience. Other people say the self is awareness, or consciusness. Some even say it is the intelligent knowing, or life itself. In whatever way you conceive these things it is very clear that these are something different to the common sense conception we have of being discrete causal 'selves' in the world which I am challenging here. We need not deny there is awareness, which is clearly the canvass upon which life unfolds, but equating this to something to identify with or our true self is a completely different project to what I have in mind here.

This is where much of the trouble arose from in the early days, I hope I have ironed this out to pave the way for future understanding, and rebuild the bridges we stormed over and destroyed by recklessly throwing fire and brimstone around the place.

The problem from the start in any of these endeavours was really in going about things with an ad hominem approach to make up for the shortcomings of the TS and RT foundations. This was where all the problems arose from, and clearly there is little point in arguing about 'no self' in this manner. I just hope that you make the journey and be sceptical of anything you see along the way, I am certain you will see what is true for yourself.

I guess the main field of exploration for me now is determining what does really exist. For instance, there is conscious intelligence, the experience of phenomena, and the appearance of being a moral person in world, whether or not we agree if this person is illusory or not. It is in these avenues we can explore and develop our understanding and endeavour to expand our insights in to human nature and the phenomenon of experience.

Decided to write this to support Mr Stepvhen's excellent blog post “CarpeVeritas”.

In particular I want to dissect what it means to live life to the full and explain how this insight of no self, fits in to the core of this.


So one of Steph's points, he is asking what is the principle of living life to the Max? Is it really just sex, drugs and rock and roll, or, can we boil it down to something more meaningful?
So we are going to lay it out simply here, we are going to outline the maxim your life is based on and then we are going to do some thought experiments, to highlight this maxim. We will then look at vanity briefly and then we will look at your long term goals and demonstrate how you are actively sabotaging your own happiness.


So let's outline your current view. We have investigated the shopping and fucking mode before. Basically, worst case scenario, your life is like a crack addiction to draw a very aggressive analogy. You bounce from hit to hit and you can't even see through the façade, that you call “your life”. It has no value, other than what you perceive it to be. You are subject to an illusion, a simple mistaken perception. That is the sum total of what your life amounts to.


If you could actually muster up five seconds of honesty and see this in real life, then you would be free.


If you believe your life is real and has intrinsic value, then you are like the crack head scratching around in the fibers of the carpet, for another rock. Why do I feel justified in using this analogy? Well to put it simply, your life is orientated around hedonism. Lets look at the definition:


he·don·ism (hdn-zm)

1. Pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially to the pleasures of the senses.
2. Philosophy The ethical doctrine holding that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good.
3. Psychology The doctrine holding that behaviour is motivated by the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
   

Really, it is that simple, this is your life and that puts you on the level of a crack head, simply because you are running the same maxim on a cognitive level. Not to equate you as a junkie, of course but this analogy, is similar in the sense, that it is always about the end result; a dose of feel good. Of course it may sound insulting but really, I am trying to emphasise the main point which is this: your life is constructed around hedonism.


This is the centre of gravity for your life.


We already know that everything you do is designed to bring you pleasure and avoid pain, this is stating the obvious. There is nothing wrong with this in itself, this is simply a useful survival program and a chemical reward system but you have never looked at the extent to which this goes and how this survival program, is manipulated by society. Don't forget, this desire for pleasure and avoidance of pain, is the most natural thing that arises in us, that is not in question but for us to treat hedonism as an end in itself, is where our problem lies.


So lets do a thought experiment, to drive this point home. Pick out anything in your life that you desire. It can be any object you want. Any object you like, whatever you want but make sure its a short term material object of some kind, a new coat, car, or whatever. Then ask yourself what will you get from buying this thing? The answer may be to look good, or because you need transportation. Then the final step is always to ask yourself; “why do I want this?” The answer every time, is because you think it will make you happy or feel good.


If you don't derive this answer, then simply ask what will it mean if I have this thing repeatedly to each new answer you derive, until you conclude “because I will be happy/ feel good”.


If you don't come to this answer you are being dishonest. If this wasn't the case, you would be happy with a blanket or a reliant robin but we both know your vanity wouldn't allow you to do that. Likely when you come to this conclusion, you will have a mental image of the situation, of some kind. This is the planning faculty in action, we have just glanced at the goal setting mechanism of the brain.


As I said, there is nothing inherently wrong with this goal setting mechanism but when it becomes twisted to propagate a fantasy and an illusory sense of realism, then it becomes detrimental to our own well being. We are programmed in to repeating this consumer pattern and by the very nature of this society, it reinforces this mentality in each of us. We can question whether the system is wrong but we need only concern ourselves with the reality we face right now.


Rather than being happy in the present moment, our reward system is manipulated by the new jeans, the nice shoes, the smart car and the consumer trappings. They are transient fleeting feelings and like the crack head needs their fix, many of us are chasing our tails, trying to fill a gap in our lives with material goods, that we cannot possibly hope to fill.


These material fixes, are nothing more than our hedonistic hits and our short lived, flaky feel good factor. This has been discussed at length already but it always amounts to propping up a flaky self image to other people (that no one else gives a shit about), which allows you to feel good about yourself aka: your vanity, it always boils down to vanity.


“vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2)


Apologies for quoting the bible but they got a point for once. Your hedonistic crack fix, is tied in to feeding your vanity.


Guess what?


Your vanity will NEVER be satisfied.


You are keeping the wolves at bay, to put it simply. What happens when something penetrates the façade you present to the world? It collapses like a house of cards and your illusory self esteem is shattered. Then you direct all your resources in to rebuilding your self image, which amounts to nothing, because your have literally been configured, to live a lie from day one.


The trouble is, this becomes the very mechanism, in which, we inadvertently use to actively suppress our natural expression of happiness.


Try the thought experiment with a long term goal now. This is important, as we will demonstrate an aspect of the mind where you are sabotaging yourself.

So, you hold on to these long term goals and dreams, some of them are realistic, granted. As long as they are realistic, you can be safe in the knowledge that one day, everything will work out for you. I mean, lets cut to the chase here. You also hold a belief that everything is going to work out for you. As an example, maybe your in a shitty low paid job you hate and you think buying your own house will make you happy one day. Only, you will probably never be able to afford one. You have already done the maths, it doesn't add up.


That doesn't matter though, you will still believe it is going to happen for you one day. You will blind yourself to the reality of your situation. You will simply lie to yourself, because to you, it is unthinkable. You believe this system will provide for you, you may even believe that you are entitled to this. No. The system has you by the balls and you are trapped in your situation but you won't accept it. It might not have even crossed your mind that you aren't in control of your destiny, the system is. Try dropping out for a few days and see how far you get. Remember the weapons of mass destruction lie that you swallowed?


Swallow it you did.


You carried on with your life and told yourself “It doesn't affect me, it's miles away”. You lied to yourself and rationalised your inaction, you kept turning in to work, you kept doing the same thing, you clung to your hopes whilst all the time, trying to ignore the fact that this system doesn't give a fuck about you.


No offence intended, it is just a machine, its impersonal, you are just another worthless cog, no matter which way you look at it. You have no value in society, you are just another straw man paying your taxes. If you believe that the system cares about you, then you need only look at the fact that smoking is not banned, because money is more important to the system, than whether you have lung cancer. Incidentally if you do smoke, you are likely going to die an early, nasty death. To avoid this reality, you merely tell yourself you are going to give up soon and you focus on anything else, apart from the reality you are facing.


Maybe you work well in the system, maybe you are a dysfunctional cog but every facet of your existence, rotates around this central pin, of an illusory self image, propped up by hedonistic desire. Maybe if you meet this partner, go on this holiday, it is still the same situation. You have said this to yourself; “I'll be happy once x happens”. You just don't see it. Its not your fault, we were all blind, we all lied to ourselves but lets be objective here.


The goal setting mechanism, has been manipulated in to these extremes by societal conditioning. By partaking in this hopes and dreams, fantasy mentality, not only are you lying to yourself, you are actively repressing your own happiness. You are engaged in a hit and hope strategy, where you are waiting it out and hoping for something to come along and make everything better, be it something planned, or some sudden change of circumstance. You actually believe this don't you? Be honest now for once in your life, you actually do hold this belief.


It won't work out for you because you are lying to yourself.


The lie simply changes and morphs in to some other desire object and in this projected time frame, you have made it so that you can't be happy, since you are attached to the fruition of your desires and the hedonistic maxim.


You even fully believe that your life happiness, depends on these things.


What does this mean for you, if you genuinely believe that you can only be happy when “x” criteria is met? Jeesh, you are actually doing this. You are repressing your natural expression of happiness actively.


Some of you may be really extreme, you may even make a wish when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake, you may close your eyes and wish really hard for something that will make you happy. You probably always tell yourself; “if only”.


Well, my Grandma bless her, she taught me a few things that held me in good stead. First she taught me that gambling is a complete waste of money over the course of your life (do the maths) and secondly she delivered me this profound lesson at the age of twelve:


“Wish in one hand, shit in the other and then see which one gets full first”


Ain't that the truth, bless her cotton socks.


Of course, I have used a hard case here and this example was extreme but in doing so, I have given you a tool to identify these aspects in your own life. This is a pattern of thought simply, I am sure you can find some ways you have deluded yourself but the striking thing is, the level of dishonesty we have with ourselves in real life, is simply mind blowing. Undertake the looking process and you will witness the fortress you have built around your idea of self, which amounts to nothing more than wholesale self deceit.


Our goal getting mechanism, has been warped to make a projection of our false self in to the future. It is through these desires, we form attachments and in part, that contributes to the illusion of the self, gives it credence and also becomes the mechanism, in which the expression of happiness is repressed. I'm not talking about walking around in a state of ecstasy the whole time, forget about the hippies telling you that crap, that is simply more hedonism and a trap. This is about non - attachment to fantasy projections and not relying on hedonism as the sole means of fulfilment in your life. Hedonism is cool, I still do things because I feel good, there is nothing actually wrong with this in itself but...


Pleasure is a natural by product of enjoying your life, not the far flung and distant goal of your life.


That doesn't mean you should not aspire for things, or be ambitious, this is not in question but you need to know, that pleasure, should naturally expresses itself when living life to the full and should not be treated as an end in itself.


It doesn't have to be like this. It is not as though you can just decide to adopt this by choice but there is a way out though. I'm not selling you happiness, or feel good crack. I am empowering you and giving you the tool of honesty to apply in each area of your life. How you use it, is up to you. It is not always pretty when you use honesty and it requires courage to do so but I would rather live a life of honesty and face the the raw imperfections eye to eye, than take solace in a lie. That is really the stark choice you are facing, so which is it going to be?

So ask yourself, are your hopes and dreams serving you well, or are they keeping you locked in a perpetual cycle of defeat? Be honest here, maybe its time you looked to see if this self was actually real, could it be that you are actively sabotaging your life?