Spoiler Alert: You Do Not Exist
I would like to start this article gently, but the truth is. No matter how I put this, it will seem odd. No matter how I say this, it will rub someone up the wrong way. No matter how delicately I handle this it, will challenge the foundations of your entire life.
If moving towards the truth is not what you want. If breaking free of the ties that have bound your life. If a rejection of the very reason you are here now, searching for freedom is not what you are after, stop reading now.
I’ll assume whoever is left only wants one thing: the cold and ruthless truth. Now to dispense with the pleasantries…
You do not exist.
What? How? Why?
I could explain logically that for self to exist it must be outside of reality-manipulating reality, and that anything outside of reality is unreal.
I could tell you that all you have ever had of your self is your thoughts about it. Just as your thoughts about unicorns do not mean unicorns are real, your thoughts about yourself are nothing more than thoughts.
We could delve into the many linguistic errors in this piece and ask “if you don’t exist why do you use the word ‘I’ so much”. I know, as you now know, that use of a word does not prove the existence of its namesake. We must simply do our best with the limited “selfish” language we were given.
I do not expect you to believe me
In fact I don’t want belief. I want you to discover it for yourself that you have no self (clever, eh?).
I’d like to offer that all we really know for sure is what we are experiencing right now. Memory is fallible, the past and future never come or go. All we can know is our direct experience of what is in the present moment.
With that in mind, I want you to pay direct attention to your experience of life right now.
Take a look at this self, which thinks your thoughts and moves your body. If it truly thinks your thoughts then it must exist apart from those thoughts. Pay attention to your experience; do you experience this self outside of thought?
Sure you have thoughts about the self, but look at experience, do those thoughts come from a self?
More importantly what are each of those thoughts DOING ? Are they trying to convince that there is a self?
I resisted this at first too..
The first thing I thought when I tried this was “Of course there is a self, this is stupid.” However as I watched, I realized that all my thoughts were about a self, but there was no self thinking up the thoughts.
I began to rationalize that I must be the brain because the brain thinks up the thoughts, but it hit me hard between the eyes. I don’t experience the brain thinking up thoughts.
I just experience thoughts arising conditioned by experience. It wasn’t my experience, I wasn’t there thinking the thoughts. There was only experience conditioned thoughts.
Sure there was a body and a mind, but the driver seat was empty. Life was automatic. As I looked around the room I sat in, the haze began to lift. My entire world fell apart. Only, it wasn’t my world and had never been. My whole life made sense, because it was never truly my life.
How has this affected me?
It’s an intense and real freedom, this liberation from erroneous assumption of self. From the time from the thought first entered my head, till my taking a look at the experience of life in that moment was roughly 7 minutes.
In mid September 2010 I saw life for what it is. It’s changed me for the better since. I can see clearly now. I tend not to get caught in emotional feedback loops and the idea of self. I still have it I just see that I have it, and see it for what it is.
Since I got this I’ve dedicated my life to bringing this to other people. I’ve been taking a little break but over the first 6 months I liberated 13 people . I have many friends who also pledged themselves to free this world. It’s hasn’t been easy there have been many ups and downs. We’ve stared into the abyss together and watched the brightest of stars fall from grace. What we do now we do with eyes open, and what we do is open eyes.
All it took was 7 minutes. I’ve seen people do it in 3. All you need to do is to pay attention to your experience of life. Just look.
Mark said on 05.09.2012
I’m always glad to see that there are other people with this high self-awareness.
The higher you fly, the lonelier it gets.
The article did not impact me somehow though. I think this is because I am already living in this “freedom”. I have also struggled with the possibility to free people’s minds, but I have not found a concrete solution though.
I made up this motto today:
“I will not help the ignorant, because they do not need my help. It does not make me sad, because they have a life worth dieing for. I will not help the ones who suffer, because they will not understand. It does not make me sad, because I will inspire and know that those who are affected, will have a great life.”
But maybe I should reconsider it.
Stephen said on 05.09.2012
Sounds empty
Stephen said on 05.09.2012
Not in a depressing way. Literally empty in a buddhist way.
Mark said on 05.19.2012
Yes well I think I have lost the dream and somehow I am not in the “HighExistence” anymore. I know how it feels like, but the self illusion returned. I think finding the solution for other people was my meditation.
OptimisticNihilist said on 05.20.2012
Great post, Zha Zen and Zen? Definitely worth looking into for some relative comfort. However, if you are doing what you say you’re doing in the post, fair play. A lot of Zen is pretentious by default. I know that sounds rather contradictory but I mean to the outsider it seems pretentious and fantastical which is like an automatic deterrent. It seems like you’ll give a more grounded feel to it.
OptimisticNihilist said on 05.20.2012
I really hope I don’t offend or insult you but it seems as though you’re creating a defence using the proposed offence. Fighting fire with fire if you will. You say you’re going to let life get on with life if I understand correctly? Well yes do but don’t remove yourself from life. As part of the universe you’ve the ability to interact with it, change it. You don’t have to, but you can. Im not disagreeing with you’re post at all I think its quite insightful but its like you’re stopping yourself from interfering with anyone because you can’t possibly interfere or “help” them all. All you need to know is that no, you can’t help everyone or change everything. but you change something.
Jack said on 05.23.2012
Amen.
Mark said on 07.31.2012
Yes, maybe it’s some sort of defence. But I’ll be there if people ask, but so far the people I know and tried to help are just stuck in their own beliefs and left-side thinking. I will help when it’s really needed, but so far no one really wondered how I do it.
Bryan Turner said on 06.04.2012
Totally on the same page, I find it very hard with even close friends sometimes I think they have got it and then we get into a one way discussion about science being a bad thing or how a man made religion somehow has an better understanding of what happens when we die. I can accept that some people just stop taking in new information at some point in their lives but it is still hard to deal with. Luckily I do have friends who are on a similar path and continue to be blown away by new knowledge.
This article has made real sense but I have yet to fully get to grips with it but it definitely seems to be in line with the path (I?) have been on lately. so today may very well turn out to be a very interesting day =)
Stephen said on 05.23.2012
Hey you guys!! You’ll like this. It’s a community that grew out of this article and some of the people involved with this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJKkc0uiCbY
Will said on 05.30.2012
“To thine own self be true.” It’s a saying we hear all the time, but how absolutely false it is. You can’t be true to a self that doesn’t exist! Along with that, how egotistical to think that we above all else is where we find our truths?
Through the my experiences, the truths that have been discovered were always there. It took those experiences to open them up to my comprehension.
Cat Badger said on 05.30.2012
With respect, Stephen, I think you’re both right and wrong. This is not meant to bash your post or beliefs by any means, only food for thought.
Perhaps we aren’t the ones ultimately in the drivers seat…I mean ‘I’, as in my experience through these eyes. I go through life thinking in terms of how everything relates to ‘self’, reacting to stimuli both internal and external. Through this I form my identity, – a collection of personality traits, habits, opinions, and of course, physical attributes – something which defines me. So of course ‘I’ exist, don’t I?…
From some other point of reference, ‘I’ could be interpreted as a conditioned identity created through experience and over time. But all these things have meaning only to myself. I ask myself: “Am I myself not the creator of these thoughts, am I merely the receiver and not the one making the calls?”
But isn’t the question you’re really asking obvious? “Where do our thoughts come from?”
Perhaps I am a conditioned identity created by self after all, a self that along with all other selves, creates this reality. A self that has many facets. I agree with you that I do not exist, well, exist as such in a physical way in the grand scheme of things. That none of us do. But I believe consciousness is the key, the operator if you will, that we are spiritual beings at heart, and that the self or soul is completely and eternally valid.
I’m not invalidating your experience at all. I’m just wondering if you recognize the emptiness of your proposal. It could be a Zen approach, but even Buddhists accept their place in and influence in and of this life.
I’m curious, What are your thoughts about the dream state? On deep thought and creativity? And your definition of reality?
Perhaps we are the dreamers and the ones who are dreaming.
I know I’m not getting the full spectrum of your beliefs in your post, I have that in mind. I’m very open to constructive debate.
Good luck and I hope to hear your thoughts.
The_truth_is_ said on 06.01.2012
“If it truly thinks your thoughts then it must exist apart from those thoughts.”
This post makes claims without arguments. It poses hypothetical questions which can be answered in a way that contradicts the points it’s trying to make, in an attempt to seem much more deep than it actually is.
The truth is, something like, “Cogito, ergo, sum” proves that something, some thinking thing, is having experiences. Sure, those experiences can be manipulated, all from some hallucinogenic source, or some sort of Matrix machine keeping us controlled in a virtual universe. But I, as a thinking thing, exist. Experiences exist, therefore things exist to experience them.
The reason I quote at the beginning of this reply is simply because thoughts do not have to be apart from the body. If one is not some sort of metaphysical dualist, or some sort of idealist, and accepts the idea of materialism in regards to the philosophy of the mind and cognitive science, then the mind and body are one whole entity, including thoughts. Thoughts do NOT have to exist apart from us. I don’t know where the “must” came from in that sentence, but damn that’s stupid.
LucidDreamer said on 06.10.2012
I think that the fact that I am so interested in this is that I lucid dream, but I also believe that we do not exist. I mean, if people think that the world is real, that they exist, that a God exists even, then surely ghosts and wizards and unicorns could be too? But that’s just impossible, but when you really think about it, everything is impossible. Scientists believe in the ‘big bang’ and I used to, but how can everything come from nothing? It’s just impossible. So I now believe that anything is possible because we simply don’t exist. And I don’t have anyone to talk to about this because I’m only 14 and my friends would think I’m crazy :D
ashton said on 06.12.2012
Stephen or anyone else who has been ‘liberated,’ does this imply that my physical body exists, as does my brain and my thoughts, but the manifestation of a conscious being that I have come to know as myself does not exist? In other words, I do exists in terms of my tangibility, but within I am nothing.
Ali said on 06.26.2012
This is really tripping me out. I can’t phrase it more eloquently than that. I’m scrolling through the various websites associated with this train of thought, and it’s seriously freaky. I mean… I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, and just trying to wrap my mind around this concept is mind-boggling. I’m still struggling with it right now. I’m excited to see where it takes me as I begin to understand this perception more.
MsKisa said on 06.29.2012
I see this line of thought leading to mass depression for all who subscribe to it. If personal preference and experience are negated because we are not really a ‘self’ or an ‘I’, then WHY does the universe insist on a world that reinforces the idea of self and individuality? I believe individual experiences and preferences must have at least some importance. Perhaps as information to bring back to the collective consciousness? This temporary experience of having a ‘self’ here on this Earth must have value to our higher forms, if not why allow it to persist?
david said on 07.03.2012
I had trouble understanding this, partially because it conflicted with my ideas on how to make life the best it can be. My awareness of mortality leads me to seek happiness in my life by finding meaning and flow. This requires consciousness of the mind to identify strengths and apply myself to a life utilizing these strengths. If I were to let my surroundings influence my interests I would not be doing justice to my personal strengths.
PRAKASH said on 07.04.2012
All of Advaita Vedanta , Gautama Siddhartha aka Buddha , the Taoism, the quantum physicists nowadays , even the Bible it looked clearly and free of religious aberrations state the same thing. We are not real. Not in the sense of non existence. Existence is very much real. But as persons and individuals we are nothing more than IDEAS. Take away the ideas and memories… what remains? 100% agreed. I especially like your algorithm of finding this out.
Ajie Hastomo said on 07.18.2012
I think it’s called destiny? My religion taught me that life was pre-ordained.
It means everything we do, everything that’s gonna happen to us, even the exact time when we’re gonna dead was already written.
It’s like a script for a movie. Life without a script would be a chaos, just like a movie without a script, empty.
We’re in auto-pilot mode, we just dont aware of it.
ninjamonkey9 said on 10.24.2012
I completely disagree.
ninjamonkey9 said on 10.24.2012
I felt the change as soon as the ‘I resisted this too…’ paragraph. Surely this would be an infinite loop. If there was a ‘driver’, would that also mean they had no ‘self’ and another ‘driver’…..etc. etc………..i think you have confused me..!?
icebong said on 12.22.2012
i personally think, everything is energy and the energy is very real, the manifestation that is people from this energy interprets the energy which creates our perception of reality?, these are my own thoughts.
Joschember said on 01.22.2013
Hi, it was a nice article. I haven’t given it a go yet but i know what you’re talking about. I made my realisation through science and i think that would be a better way to convince people. It’s common sense based on what we (think) we know. For example, all matter breaks down into particles. The human body regenerates constantly. People change, physically and mentally. If you change the brain, you change the mind. Cloning, which happens naturally too in identical siblings. There’s no reason to believe that our awareness is anything more than the culmination of our senses, that we are anything but rocks floating through space… Except we are. :) That’s how i understand it anyway…
dan k said on 01.28.2013
This article points in an interesting direction but then stops. “What happens when you question the reality of being a self?” Great, that is a worthy question. But the limitations of language oriented toward separate ‘I-ness” is not an excuse for then asserting, “I” am now free”, and “I can liberate other people”, etc. This article is simply positing a new self, the “liberated self”, for the old one. A concept for a concept. No self means no self. It’s simple. There is no interpreting an “I” in that. it’s nonsense to assert you are a non-self self. It’s important that there is some dilligence in using language to represent truth, and it’s not enough to just say we need to do our best with selfish language and then go on to reassert a subtler identity. Existence is truly amazing, infinitely complex and coordinated on some mindboggling level. And investigation (what ever that is ultimately) certainly reveals that “what is” does not match up with the concept of reality involving people in a physical universe, separate, self-contained, individual body/minds, self determinantly going about their business, managing their functions and lives. What is revealed is much more strange and wonderous than a simply more psychologically less encumbered “person” who can now shape “their” world and free so called “others”. That may be a happier circumstance than the typical psychological lot, but it’s not free of self or identity ……..