The no-self view is inherently correct, sentient beings which are separate from the universe do not exist, only the raw universe exists

Right now, you believe that you are a sentient being located at, “the point somewhere back there behind the eyes between the ears” where external perceptions converge. This is what you have been told your whole life, this is what someone tells you as they vaguely wave their hand at their head, vaguely describing that you are “back there somewhere inside the skull”. “You” are told that what “you” is, is the point “back there” in your brain where perceptions CONVERGE. You believe that “you” are the “entity” which these perceptions belong TO. 

In reality, that “entity” who is “witnessing” the perceptions does not actually exist, there are just perceptions existing, an act that does not BELONG to anyone, and that no one is DOING. The universe is creating consciousness experience bubbles (which are objects, not subjects), that don’t belong to any “human” or “sentient being”. The brain does not belong to anyone, the body does not belong to anyone, the thoughts do not belong to anyone, the sensations do not belong to anyone, and the experiences do not belong to anyone, making everything that is happening “impersonal”. 

The universe is doing everything on its own without the help of a “you”, and there is no one who is in control of anything that’s happening, including “his/her” own decisions.  Even if you believe that the brain produces consciousness (even though it doesn’t), there are still no contradictions, it would just mean that the brain is thinking, feeling, sensing, and perceiving all on its own, without a “you” involved anywhere in the equation, doing the thinking, feeling, sensing, and perceiving almost like the brain has a “mind of its own” without “someone” inside of, or in CONTROL of the brain. 

Upon realizing this, the false “you” (the entity you believe is inhabiting the body), disappears from inside the body & brain which leaves nothing but the entire room you are sitting in as well as the body, so that the only thing that is left is the raw conscious universe, not a “point” inside the brain. You realize that what you actually are is this entire circular bubble of perceptions surrounding you right now, the entire room you are sitting in, or the dome that your body is always in the middle of. 

Look around you right now, and you can see that wherever you look, your body is always trapped inside of this visual field bubble, almost like you are always inside of a Christmas ornament, and always in the center of it. What you actually are is this entire bubble that the body is sitting in, not just the body. You are the entire room you are sitting in. That is the BIG self that you are. 

The most important part to understand however, is that this bubble is not a “sentient BEING”. This bubble is not a SUBJECT. It is an OBJECT. It does not belong to a “you”, a “sentient being”, or any sort of “perceiver.” It exists without belonging to anyone. This is what extremely advanced practitioners of yoga, meditation, or psychedelics realize at their peak experience, that they aren’t localized inside the body. 

This truth still works even if you believe that the brain produces consciousness/that the convergence of perceptions is localized inside the brain, it would just mean that “YOU” are not localized inside of the brain. Just because a convergence of perceptions occurs inside the brain, does not mean that there is a “YOU” at the point where this convergence happens.

If you still believe that “you” are the brain, think about this. Any portion of the brain can be damaged or removed, although still keeping the body alive. Many people have had surgical procedures where half of their brain is removed, and still function as normal, for the most part. So this “point” where every sensation merges to, where is it? It cannot be located in a “specific” place, if the person may stay alive and coherent, even with any little or big section of their brain removed. Is it just generalized all over the brain? And when parts are removed or damaged, it moves to other parts of the brain? Sort of like a “block chain” server? In this case, the point would have to move around on its own, sort of like a little mini “soul” or “spirit” that is just localized inside the brain. No, that sounds like pseudoscience, and considering you are a materialist that believes that consciousness is produced in the brain, you DEFINITELY don’t want to say that. Maybe we should ditch the whole idea that “you” are the brain all together?

Nevertheless, you still believe that there is a “you”, and you have to figure out what is actually HAPPENING there when “you” imagine “you”. What usually happens when “you ” think of “you”, is that an image of the face pops up in the mind, the body is felt, and the word “me” is said as a thought. So, is there actually a REAL honest to goodness objective “you” happening there? No! 

There is only a “floating” mental image of a face, a “floating” thought sound of the word “ME”, and a FEELING of a body. (That sentence right there is the most important KEY to this work.) Those are only thoughts and feelings floating around the empty universe. Imagine an empty universe where there were no sentient beings of any kind, however there were just free floating thoughts, emotions, bodies, and sensations just floating around in a vacuum. That is EXACTLY the case of what is happening here and now! 

But someone might object and say, “John, there cannot just be thoughts, emotions, bodies, and sensations just floating around in a vacuum, someone has to be perceiving them!” But this is where idealism comes into play. No one HAS to be perceiving these things if they are MADE OUT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. Consciousness is not a property that only “sentient beings” have. Consciousness is a MATERIAL. It is what everything is made out of.

You know how we say the most fundamental material that matter is made out of is atoms? Well, it’s not. The most fundamental material is actually consciousness. Traditionally, we are taught that there are sentient beings, such as humans, cats, dogs, and apes, and that there are also non-sentient beings, such as rocks, trees, cars, and houses. However, this is not the case. All there exists are bubbles made out of consciousness, floating around and hallucinating anything they want. These bubbles again are not subjects, they are objects.

And when you finally grasp this after many months or a few years where all of the sudden you get the physical feeling of “you” disappearing from the body, just know that all that is happening there is that the concept of a “you” is going away, a concept built and reinforced over the years. 

Congratulations! You have just successfully REINTERPRETED YOURSELF OUT OF EXISTENCE. It’s going to be scary as hell, and afterwards you will not be here anymore, and you are going to be dead. The body will be intact, but “you” will be dead. Which at the same time means that you can never die. You can never cease to exist. Because if you were somehow able to “cease to exist”, an experience of “ceasing to exist”, or “nothingness” would still have to occur, so therefore by definition, there always needs to be existence. 

Think about a couple who are about to conceive a baby. Technically, the baby is “dead”, because it has not been born yet. So you could think of the baby as “dead, existing unconsciously in this void”. However, right before the point of conception, the parents decide NOT to conceive. Does this mean that this baby has been and forever will be dead? Always experiencing “nothing” forever, at no point ever experiencing life? Or that there are an INFINITE amount of “dead” beings at one moment experiencing nothing, waiting in a void to never be born? Or was the baby/those “dead” people only ever just a concept in our minds, the only place it ever existed. This is why “non-existence” is impossible. Ahh, now I understand why non-existence is called non-existence: because it doesn’t exist!

This may be difficult to grasp, especially if you believe that the world is material, and you must have an open mind to be able to see that it is not. Many examples point to how the word is not physical. For example, the mind-body problem. When you look at an object, such as your hand, you are taught that you “project” consciousness onto the object, and that light travels from the hand, into your eyes, down the optic nerve, into the brain, lighting up the visual cortex, at which this point a “mental image” of a hand “occurs” in the brain. 

However, it has never been discovered even in the slightest fashion how “dumb, dead” physical matter (otherwise known as the atoms of the brain) can give rise to mental phenomena, such as thoughts, sounds, colors, feelings, emotions, etc. Matter cannot produce consciousness. In order to solve the mind-body problem, you must remove any “physical matter” from the occasion, and realize that only consciousness exists.

Another thought experiment to think about is to imagine being a caveman at the dawn of human existence. You were not brainwashed yet with the idea that perceptions converge at a point in the brain, because that idea had not been invented yet. When you look at the hand, would you have the experience of, “perceptions coming FROM matter, and going THROUGH the eyes, INTO the brain, creating a separate mental IMAGE”? DO you really experience TWO versions of the hand, one being the “matter” that no one can experience (because everyone can only experience life through their own veil of “perception”), and the second being an IMAGE in the mind? No! When you look at the hand, there is only one thing going on, and that is the “object” of the hand, made out of consciousness. Not “coming” from anywhere (“physical” matter), and not going TO anywhere (the “mental image). Do this experiment right now, and really try it on your own hand.