What does it mean to Believe in a self?
It is a common belief that we have a self. What does that mean?
Self is a reference by an individual to the same individual person. This reference is necessarily subjective and it follows that self is a reference by a subject to the same subject
Self is a phenomenon that occurs within the Mind. There is one Great Mind that exists as it's own Being. A self is formed as a set of ideas linked together. These ideas hold such a strength that they create a 'feeling of self'. There is a memory of the past, and events occurring from one of the eyes or (I's) of the mind. The observing point turns back onto it's "self" and becomes concerned with it's own existence. The common knowledge of self is actually an existential crisis. This creates fear. As long as the ego(self) exists it will produce fear. Fear becomes more complex, as the ideas of the mind become more complex, and belief systems more intricate. Depression, anger, guilt, sadness, grief, jealousy, and many other afflictions are formed as byproducts. These emotions feel very "real," but once the delusions are exposed in the light of awareness they fade away or form into the natural states of peace and joy.
This Model Shown above is the Cognitive Behavioral Model. The process is shown to be in a loop, much like our self is. The consciousness of most Eyes of the Mind is in a state of peace and harmonious existence with everything around it knowing that "it(self)" is really everything else in existence. There is no beginning or end to Life or Time. There is one consistently chaotic moment of one Infinite Being that is conscious. The instances of "self" consciousness are localized thought consistencies. They are a bundle of ideas, and beliefs that believe to be independent of other thought consistencies. Using subjective and objective language, these beliefs can be reinforced constantly in the localized areas of the Mind. Where there is self, there is other, it sees it(self) as separate and all matter to be separate as well. Although at the root of all matter is the atom the basic building block of life, that is made up of even smaller blocks electrons. Atoms run through all that is physical and are made of 99.99999999% empty space.
when you really think about it, "empty space" becomes kind of a tricky concept to define, and it depends on the scale at which you look at the space. For example, there's a story about a philosophy (?) professor doing a demonstration in class, where he fills a cup with marbles, asks "Is there empty space in this cup?" (and the students answer "no"), then pours sand into the cup, asks "Is there empty space in this cup?" ("no"), then pours water in and so on. The point is that "empty space" is not a specific technical term. A particular region of space could be considered empty or full or something in between, depending on which definition you're using; and definitions differ.
diazona / Particle Phenomenology | QCD | Computational Physics
In about a year every atom in your body would have been exchanged. Not a single atom in your body resides there forever and there is a 100% chance that 1000s of other humans through history held some of the same atoms that you currently hold in your body. To be sure this data is confounding and seems to defy logic. However the Radioisotope data as far back as 1953 is quite conclusive. The data is not based on urban legend or assumptions yet certainly seems to feel this way. Just as fascinating, is the fact that about 30% of your body, by weight, is not even “you” (cells without human DNA/RNA), it is a cooperative arrangement of bacteria, viruses, parasites and other welcomed or sometimes unwelcome guests. In fact, just in the case of bacteria, there are 10 times more bacteria cells then human cells in your body. Source Link
So, we understand that the self cannot be pinned down to anything physical. Where the skin stops and the air starts, is an interdependent point of Life, where chemical reactions are taking place and atoms are changing in and out. Would you be less of your"self" if we cut off your arm? There are chemical reactions in the brain that help produce our feeling of self, but this doesn't make it any more unique or real.
The Mind is made up of a collective knowledge. A person learns what he/she knows handed down in a language that co-arised long ago involving many different "minds" and is forever developing. The ideas of an "individual" are learned from those around them, and eventually from schools, books, music, and virtually every experience one encounters in life. Any aspect said to make up an individual mind can be shown to be unoriginal from the letters forming the words, to the images mirroring the reality around them (which are all outside what is thought to be the self).
Suffering arises when we are attached to our self, and ideas, and create a huge drama of our self, our relationships with others, and the objects in our world. Yet, in reality none of the parts that interact in the drama are really separate from each other. If this was understood throughout the mind, and all decisions were made based upon the Truth of our independence and our interconnected nature, then all beings within Being would be living harmoniously and in Peace. If we meditate and detach from our beliefs, we can live our lives without suffering and use our thoughts as helpful tools to create peace, and productivity in our lives, and the lives of others which is essentially the same Life.
