I & No I :: Personal & Not Personal
5a. Living with an I is impersonal and cold. (Yes, it is. It creates a separation, and I and other. It brings resistance and a sense of alienation.)
5c. Living without an I is personal and warm. (Yes, it can be deeply personal and warm. In fact, this is where we can allow ourselves to go completely into the personal and warm, because there is nothing to resist).
The inquiry in previous post helped me see the relationship between I and no I, and personal/warm and impersonal/cold more clearly.
I and impersonal
When there is a sense of an "I" as a segment of what is, there is automatically an I - other dynamic created. There is a natural sense of disconnection and alienation.
There is also a natural resistance to aspects of what is, in terms of what comes up from inside and outside of our human self.
The sense of alienation and the resistance are two aspects of the same duality, and both leads to a withdrawal and distancing from what is. In some areas of life - and throughout our life - it leads to a certain coolness.
No I and personal
When there is no "I" to be found anywhere, then there is also no resistance. Everything comes up as is, and goes away on its own accord.
Less or no resistance means that we can now more fully experience what is, we can allow the fullness of our human being into awareness. We open for a deepening healing, integration and maturing as a human self. We become more fully a unique human being, with all of what we are. The sensual, rich, fluid, deeply human self alive here and now.
We become more deeply warm and personal.
And the reverse
And of course the reverse is also true.
When there is just what is, as it is, with no "I" anywhere - there are many aspects of this that is not warm and personal. The ground that everything happens within/as is not in itself human or not human, it is not warm or cold, it is not personal or impersonal. It is beyond it all, and fully everything that is happening, as it is. This also means that when there is a human self there, it is fully the human self, which means fully personal, intimate, sensual, warm, rich, flesh and blood.
And when there is a sense of an "I" there, as a segment of what is, then that too can be personal and warm. When we find ourselves exclusively as a human being, there is of course the same warmth, sensuality and everything else there. It is just that it is mixed with resistance as well.
Summary
As long as we are a human self, then there is the sensuality, warmth, richness and fluidity of this human self.
When there is a belief in the thought "I", when we set aside a segment of what is as an "I", then there is automatically a sense of separation, of I vs. other, of struggle and alienation.
And when what is awakens to itself as with no "I" anywhere, as beyond and including seer and seen and any other polarity, then being caught up in the struggle and alienation goes away.
(The struggle and alienation may still be there, produced by habitual patterns of our human self, but it is now seen as just a manifestation of the ground - the crystal clear emptiness everything arises from and are. Now it just comes and goes as anything and everything else. It appears and goes away, as anything else in the world of form. The struggle falls away.)
So now, we can more fully be anything that is - including our human self. We can more fully be our human self, in all its infinite aspects and manifestations. We can allow it all in, as it is. And we can allow it all to be reorganized, healed and integrated in a new way within this ground now awakened to itself.
When we find ourselves as only human, we resist (aspects of) our humanness.
And by finding ourselves as that which is beyond the human, we can become more fully and deeply human. Just as we are. With no need to change anything. There is nothing to protect.