[:the avatar hypothesis:]
• A hypothesis (not dogma!) to replace our existing human firmware
• The idea:
• Our divine self is our true self, which inhabits our human body as an avatar
• We become overly identified with our avatars, and from this springs all our issues
• Fear of something happening to our avatar (to ourselves) inspires a clawing search for safety/security as well as fear, anxiety, attachment ...
• Imagine a painter who thinks they are the canvas and cannot pull back and see the painting.
• Instead, disidentify from your avatar
• Being overly-immersed/identified is like playing VR or watching a movie and forgetting that you are beyond the screen. That you are untouchable!
• Our avatars are just characters, and so life is all just play
• N.b. I'm not sure how this follows rationally, but it's kind of irrelevant imo
• Once disidentified far enough, any trauma can be loved and accepted back into the self, promoting growth
• Disidentification does not mean giving up engagedness. We can still engage with the world without identifying with our avatar
• My takeaway:
• I'm not super compelled by the hypothesis itself; I'm not necessarily convinced by the claims around physical reality
• Regardless, the key takeaway to me seems to be that self-identification is, at least, a factor in many emotional difficulties. To me, this is also highly associated with play.
• The question, then, is how to cultivate disidentification? How to cultivate play? The answer seems to be, believing the hypothesis, but I reject taking the hypothesis literally.
• Assorted notes:
• This is not Buddhist mindfulness, which is appropriate given the Buddhist conjecture that everything is inherently suffering.
• This is not dissociation, wherein the person disengages and becomes numb to their experience. We encourage engagedness.
• Disidentification can be difficult to do alone, since our society is not exactly on that vibe. You have a moment of clarity and then are pulled right down the next day. This is why Living Essence is designed to form a community.
• Becoming our divine self requires complete disidentification which comes about only through many stages of awakening
• It has to happen in stages because the experience of being our divine selves is so radically different from being human
• This course touches only on the first stage. (Which, to be clear, is still highly advanced even if it is "just the first")
• Scott claims that the avatar hypothesis genuinely is a close approximation of actual reality, but that realizing so would takes generations' worth of meditation. He says he has had strong direct personal experience of it.