How to reconcile praise from others and the lack of a self.

[Sarni]

Hello – what does it feel like to get praise when you are awakened. Does it feel different once we’re awakened?

 

Similarly, maybe - if you feel that someone is attracted to you, and pursuing you but you are not attracted to them. What does that feel like for an awakened human.

 

 

[Phil]

@Sarni

Hi & welcome!

 

Self is infinite, there is no lack of a self.

 

Thoughts arise about being a separate self, and it can seem like feeling is coming from experience & other separate selves. 

 

There aren’t ‘awakened selves or awakened humans’, as self is already infinite. 
 

Awake and asleep is a (dualistic) belief. There is no actual experience of awake or asleep. (There’s an experience of thoughts about.)

 

‘Praise and blame are all the same’. 

 

[Mandy]

@Sarni Welcome! 😊

 

If you had been waiting to see the northern lights all your life and now in front of you there they are, more spectacular than you ever imagined, and someone next to you mentioned to you how talented you were at the job would you even hear it then? 

 

If someone is attracted to me for romantic/sexual or any other reason whatsoever like friendship, inspiration or otherwise, I know that what they are really attracted to isn't about me at all. I symbolize or emit something that they want to focus on or realize for themselves. Likewise if I'm attracted to someone I know it's not about them but something they symbolize or reveal. Once we get how someone feels is not because of us, and how we feel is not because of them, relationships that are mutually fulfilling are the only possibility.