What Is, Splits, Fascinations & Identity
To summarize some of the themes from recent posts:
What is
There is just what is happening, as it is. There is formless awareness and the world of form arising within/as it, including this human self and everything else. And there is no "I" inherent in any of this. Not in the formless awareness, not in the form. Nothing can be set apart as an "I".
Limited identity
So when we create an identity as any segment of this, whether as our human self or formless awareness or something else, we create the experience of a split. There is "I" here and "other" there.
This naturally creates a fascination with myself, as defined by the limited identity.
And it naturally creates a fascination with the "other", through attractions and aversions. I - as this segment here - am attracted, repulsed or neutral towards any particular "other" segment. And this in turn creates a sense of struggle, and of suffering in its various forms.
Process
Through this fascination, I get to explore everything - both inside and outside of my exclusive identity. And gradually, I learn to see in myself what I see out there.
First, I learn to see more and more human qualities in myself as well as in others. Whatever is in another, is also here in my own human self.
Then, there is a shift to finding myself as more than my human self. And this shift is also aided by projections. I find myself fascinated by transcendent qualities in others - for instance in particular spiritual teachers, and engage with these people in various ways. Through this, I become more familiar with these qualities, and learn to discover them in myself.
I then discover myself as the Unborn, and eventually as Big Mind - beyond and including all polarities and splits.