Q: How should this start? Let's pretend I am all there is AND I am all love.
C: Hi there, good to hear from you. Okay, lets have a look at this: You cannot pretend to be Love, to be all there is. That IS what you are. The pretend-to-be is a story appearing IN That!
Just know that the words are only pointers; descriptions or representations, while the TRUE I is Presence. Can you deny the fact of Presence? That is HERE. Always on. Always Real.
Yet, there certainly IS pretense happening in your question: The ACTUAL inauthenticity is that you pretend to be a limited thing with complaints about how “your' life is and how “you” are pretending that “you are all there is”. That is a popular cul-de-sac, especially among seekers who have been exposed to some so-called “neo-advaita” pointers or teachers.
So I understand what you are saying; and it appears that you have merely adopted a new “Advaita-BELIEF” … without having dismantled the “believer”, the false sense of “I”.
If you have a new belief that says “I am all there is” and still have these questions, then it's crap, because until that “I” construct, that false self-concept or self-image, is deconstructed, the suffering, seeking and questioning does go on. So, my friend, that belief is just the bullshit of the mind, defending against investigation into what is REAL and what is UNREAL.
Listen to the Podcast with John Wheeler: That is exactly what we discussed. It is a popular attempt to short-cut (and short-circuit) the proper investigation and rooting out of the false self-center we call “I”.
Q: How can a part of me ever think that it is separate from the whole? wouldn't i, in my infinite love-ness, surely not allow this to happen, be, exist, even in a dream? (For, surely, if it did come to be a belief in a dream or in a dream within a dream i, in my infinite wisdom would not allow it only because it would not be my true nature and such separation would surely bring much pain to the dream (i guess ergo the dreamer as well.)
C: First off, you do not actually HAVE any “parts”. Apart from thought! That thought of an “I” that you still believe in, and assume to be really really really “myself”, a self allows or does or any of the rest of the story you tell is the true culprit; the absolute root cause of ALL seeking and suffering. Root that sucker out!
All of that which you wrote is thoughts of a self that has no real existence. Is what You Are a thought? You believe a thought, the “i” or “me” thought, to be who you are, and therefore lament how you have separated yourself. But is Awareness separate? Is Being separated from itself? Can you see that the very premise of the question is an assumption that you are the “I” thought? Have you really looked to see if that “I” thought really IS what you are? When you assume that the me is real and the I is separate, that assumption drives all this questioning. Who asks this question? Do you find any actual separate beingness IN your Beingness itself? It is just a mistake made that can be corrected with intelligent investigation!
Q: I keep coming back to this, even though and nothing and no one has any answer, either from "this" perspective or from "that" one. LOL.
C: That “LOL” is more pretense! If this is seen clearly you do not need to add “LOL” or “I get it” or anything else to the simplicity of Seeing, Being and Knowing that what you are is Presence, Awareness, and ONLY THAT. But so long as you refuse to look at the assumption that drive your seeking, it remains overlooked … yet still fully present here and now always. Regardless of what lies the mind tells you and that you believe and therefore suffer.
You say “I keep coming back...” WHO? What exactly is this “I” made of? Thought! It's a GHOST. Where IS any “self apart from other?” It's all thoughts while what You Are stands nowhere (now here) … ever free and absolutely in the clear, fully present and aware right now!
What is a “self”, a “me” or a “you” or an “I:”? Words. Irrelevant and immaterial to the Aware Presence shining isn plain sight! “I” is an empty word, and nothing more than a passing thought that you fixate on and turn into an identity that was never real. The answer is dead simple:
John Wheeler puts it like this; “Who is it who is trying to obtain what? That is only the searching of a phantom character for water in a mirage! You ARE. That cannot be denied. Instead of looking for anything, just stop and see the nature of what is already present. The mark of reality or truth is total simplicity. The mind and its creation of the “me” (the assumed separate self) can never know this. Why? Because “this” is prior to conceptualizing. So give up that game. The answer is not in the mind. Until this point is clear, one searches in vain. One waits before a picture of a door hoping that it will open someday. Your real being does not need to be grasped, achieved or known because it is already present and cannot be obtained. Before anything else appears, you must be there as the one to whom it appears. This prior being is what is being pointed to. The path to it is .... full stop. How far are you from being present and aware right now? No distance. This is the answer.”
That's as clear as it gets, using words to point to the Real.. See that Reality right now. The mind is a noise machine while YOU are always perfect, clear and ever present. That all there is to it.
