Symbiote

[Questioner]

I had a friend who sensed it and would banish it for me. I did not like that prospect at all. The presence was worrying, but banishing it felt like a stab to my gut.

Feelings in the gut can be associated with the solar plexus. The solar plexus in turn is a physical site of integrity of self-identity and decision making. A sharp pain in the gut is often associated with an attack from outside. This would be an attack on one's integrity and freedom of choice. I have felt that myself, at times. This was when other people had made choices very destructive to me and tried to impose those choices on me, overriding my free will.

Could it be that the feeling was actually not yours? Could that feeling have been the guest entity you described, fearful or angry as it lost the use of your body?

I admit it wasn't smart.

I wonder if you could discuss that a little more. Or rather, could you discuss what you think now is a smarter way to think about this.

In Sufism, my particular brand of religion, the individual does not exist but is an emergent quality from its components. Who also don't exist because they're an emergent quality from their components. And so on until we've after a days hard work effectively proven nothing can exist so we can begin drinking the nonexistent wine and laughing about jokes that don't exist either which is perfectly fine.

That sounds like a delightful path to enlightenment, no pun intended.

Are you familiar with the "many I's" discussions of Gurdjieff, and if so is that just another way to describe what you learn in Sufism?

I didn't catch this to comment at first:

Since this is an enlightened group

It might be better to say it's a group of people interested in topics related to enlightenment. Some people here might be enlightened. Perhaps some have been enlightened in the past but aren't now. Some might be searching for enlightenment, some just intrigued by the concept. At a buffet you can be sure that everyone has some interest in food. But that does not necessarily mean you have a room full of healthy eaters.