Help You do not like or hate certain things, you were conditioned into liking and hating certain things.

[Chuddha]

You do not like or hate certain things, you were conditioned by your experience of life into liking and hating certain things. Believing you are the one who likes or hates certain things is an illusion, and thus causes suffering. You were conditioned by many causes and its effects into making what you believe you are—the one called ego—but you are not really who you think you are. You are so attached to this image that "I'm the one who likes X" and "I'm the one who hates Y", that it does not allow you to detach yourself from everything you like and hate and see things for what they truly are, in reality all of your likes and dislikes are nothing more than illusions depending on a lot of conditions. Drop them all.​

 

[Tabula Rasa]

I don't think it's necessary to drop them all but it's best to be aware of the fact.

 

[Chuddha]

I don't think it's necessary to drop them all but it's best to be aware of the fact

I feel fear of dropping them all. It is like "Fuck, what am I then?", because these things define my well-crafted identity of who I think I am. But the mistake here is thinking that it was "I" the one who crafted this identity. Better said, it were all of my life experiences the ones who crafted me into this amalgamation of likes, dislikes, etc. The amalgamation: the illusory identity.

 

[GGWP]

What does 'illusory' mean in this context? I think you do play a part in developing your own ego through recursive introspection. You could say that all events are dictated by preceding events (determinism) yet at a certain point such a distinction becomes meaningless, you are basically saying that actions have consequences.

Yes, I absolutely agree that your lived experiences, effect on the world and recursive ego development constitutes a soul in the metaphysical sense. You are very desperate to exert control, so much so that you attempt to regain 'ultimate control' by disavowing some kind of determinist specter but consider for a moment that you are not the Amhitaba, you are a human.

Your desire to regain ultimate control is based on the very human desire to create a stable environment conducive to the success of your own organism.
There's nothing wrong with having desires, likes and wants, and of course your likes and dislikes are formed by the things around you, but I think this is what grants them meaning, that the environments you survived help refine the wants of your 'soul'. 'You' and 'your soul' do exist, I believe.

 

[Chuddha]

What does 'illusory' mean in this context? I think you do play a part in developing your own ego through recursive introspection. You could say that all events are dictated by preceding events (determinism) yet at a certain point such a distinction becomes meaningless, you are basically saying that actions have consequences.

Yes, I absolutely agree that your lived experiences, effect on the world and recursive ego development constitutes a soul in the metaphysical sense. You are very desperate to exert control, so much so that you attempt to regain 'ultimate control' by disavowing some kind of determinist specter but consider for a moment that you are not the Amhitaba, you are a human.

Your desire to regain ultimate control is based on the very human desire to create a stable environment conducive to the success of your own organism.
There's nothing wrong with having desires, likes and wants, and of course your likes and dislikes are formed by the things around you, but I think this is what grants them meaning, that the environments you survived help refine the wants of your 'soul'. 'You' and 'your soul' do exist, I believe.

Yeah, it is very weird to even dare to claim things such as "Drop them all".

Illusory for me in this context represents the fact that we are not the ones who do the liking nor the hating. There is just liking or hating. There is doing, but not doer. That's what I mean.

Regarding the introspection about ego I agree a lot. The more I meditate, the more I notice my conditioning by life experience. I mean, it is hard to tell until what extent I'm "free" given the fact that I'm starting to observe how thoughts come from the mind, but no from me during meditation. Someone on the internet told me that there is thinking, but not a thinker. But I do believe something: the more introspection about ego, the more "free" you become, the more I start noticing my "psychological shadow" regarding defense mechanisms such a as paranoia or egocentrism in the form of thoughts that appear in my mind in stressful situations.