Strawmanning Nonduality

If a so called non dualist declares that all reference to a personal self is imaginary, they're committing the "brown bear" misconception/delusion that Jeff Foster talked about...throwing baby out with the bathwater, just as ZD does when he insists that ALL distinction/object boundaries are false/imaginary.

A separate, existent, volitional "self" is indeed purely imaginary....there is no such thing other than in the erroneous mistaking of what you are, for such.

The pointer, 'there is no separate, volitional person,' is not the same as the declaring, there is no person at all. A 'me character' does appear and freedom is not impinged at all by that. It's only when that appearing me character is mistaken as having it's own inherent existence that freedom goes out the window.



Until and unless all that appears has been realized to be empty and devoid of it's own inherent existence, the pointer of "no SVP" is going to be ungraspable in a non-conceptual way. That said, it seems as though you're not even trying to look past the phenomenal....seems you begin with an assumption/belief that nonduality pointers are BS and then from there, you just go about trying to de-bunk them, instead of genuinely having an interest in looking into what's being pointed to.

Again, I'd ask, what continues to bring you to what is mostly a forum dedicated to Truth if you're truly not interested in anything beyond the current spiritual truths you already know? There is potentially gold there if you delve deep enough.



There can be experiential levels for sure, but Truth is dealing with what is Absolutely/actually/fundamentally so. Levels are not that. Anything that appears within experience is empty and devoid of inherent existence....thus, you cannot look to what is appearing, be it an experience of moving through levels or be it an experience of recalling a past life to declare it as Absolute Truth. It remains experiential and so long as you don't try to elevate it up to an Absolute Truth, all good. That experience itself has no power to bind/obscure freedom, but when you misconceive it to be Absolute/fundamental...an existential Truth, you've mistaken the dream-scape content for the transcendent.



If you're unable to see that those levels have no existential basis and are part and parcel of the unfolding story, that means separation is in play. I don't think you're even close yet to conceptually grasping what is meant by that term, "separation." It's a reference to a fundamental misconception/delusion that when it gets seen through, really does leave not only an absence in it's wake, but a viewpoint that is entirely new and shifted from the old/previous.

You've taken a new age belief...ideas that have a basis in psychology and self help, and tried to conform that into Nonduality.

The 'self' you are positing as being 'born with,' is at present, just an idea..so if anything, it's THAT self you are presently 'imagining'...you only experience a past self via thoughts/memories....the self that appears now, is not imaginary unless you are attributing discrete, independent, fundamental existence to it. A me character/personal self/body-mind DOES appear. It's only in mistaking that for inherently existent in it's own right, that the problem of identification occurs.

Unless and until there is a profound shift in primary locus of seeing, that identification will remain.

Nonduality points to a "Self" that is beyond/prior to that self that is apparently, physically born into the world. In that transcendence, the apparent me character/self IS included, but as an appearance only vs. an existent, volitional some-thing/some-one.

Your 'true essence' is referencing something that is 'born' into the physical world. Nonduality's 'true essence' is pointing to something beyond/prior to that....pointing to that which exists prior to physical birth and beyond physical death of the human body...of the human experience.