Looking for a guide

[Caroline]

Hello

Even before I had heard about Liberation Unleashed I had been drawn to the non-duality teachings in both Hinduism and the concept of sunyata, particularly the Diamond Sutra in Buddhism. Last week someone I have only just met told me about LU and I am really excited about what lie ahead.

I have started reading the book and have the app and now need a guide to help me get stuck in.

with gratitude

Carolinex

[Patrick]

Hello Caroline, welcome

What are your expectations here?

When you read that the 'I' is an illusion what happens (sensations, thoughts, feelings) ?

[Caroline]

Hi Patrick

Thanks for your reply.

My expectations? I don't really have a strong sense of what will happen through this process. I am drawn to the process because of some inner drive to realise the truth and I have come to see that seeing through the illusion of self is fundamental to experiencing that truth not just knowing it intellectually.

I want to some how loosen the grip that reality has on me, to be freer, to be more open and able to go with the flow a bit more. To be less constrained by the demands and fears of my narrow self occupied ego! I don't see it as a quick fix to all my 'issues' but knowing and seeing clearly that there is no 'me' to have 'issues' seems like a great place to work from.

What happen when I think of 'I' as an illusion? I get some kind of fizzy/pressure sensation around my heart which travels up to my heart but some kind of pressure remains in my heart. I feel expansive. I smile, feel a bit tearful, my shoulders drop. Phew! It feels right...but then I forget....

Is this what you meant!?

[Patrick]

Thanks for the clear descriptions.

I don't see it as a quick fix to all my 'issues' but knowing and seeing clearly that there is no 'me' to have 'issues' seems like a great place to work from
Right, clear seeing reality as it is will deconstruct old habits and tendencies.

fizzy/pressure sensation around my heart which travels up to my heart but some kind of pressure remains in my heart
Have a direct look at these sensations. What are they telling?
Are there emotions with these sensations?

[Caroline]

what are they telling me? Perhaps that there is something different about this thought, a deeper recognition that it is real. That my experience has the potential to change. They feel like positive sensations i trust that there is something going perhaps that i can't rationally intellectualise.

Emotions - excitement, joy. It feels like quite a chidlish emotion - pure and uninhibited. I have seen on other threads that they talk about fear. It doesn't seem to bring up fear - anticipation maybe but not fear.....

I'm finding it quite hard to put words to the experience....

[Patrick]

Direct experience is before labeling. It is not always easy to find the words to communicate this.

No fear but excitement and joy.
Is this deep steady pure joy?

Direct experiences are with the 5 senses. They are real.
A thought is real also but the content of the thought is not real.
The content is about past or future or other thoughts.

There is smelling, then a thought labels it ‘rose’, another thought follows ‘smells good’ followed by another thought ‘I like it’.
Is smelling possible without ‘I’?

[Caroline]

Is it deep and steady joy?

It’s how I imagine an immature version of deep steady joy to feel! A little too effervescent to be considered steady but it does feel deep.

There is smelling, then a thought labels it ‘rose’, another thought follows ‘smells good’ followed by another thought ‘I like it’.

Is smelling possible without ‘I’?

Right,OK. I’ll work backwards. The phrase ‘I like it’ assumes the presence of an I. If we remove the presence of ‘I’ who is there to like or dislike the smell? No one.

So from this it seems that without an ‘I’ liking and disliking are not possible. Who is it that would determine the preference...maybe that’s going a bit far? Not sure.

The phrase before ‘smells good’. Good is label based on a personal preference. Whilst the verb to smell is based on a reaction to sensory stimuli. The smell is smelt through the physiological and neurological processes. But the smell is labelled through thought.

I think therefore that smelling is possible. The act of smelling is biological, physiological and a direct experience of the five senses which you previously stated were real.

Where the realness becomes illusion is in our thoughts about the smell. We move beyond direct experience to judgement which requires thought.

So in short I don’t need I to smell but I think, and I am less sure about this, we need some sense of I in order to judge, assess and describe the experience of the smell. The ‘I’ is not necessary to experience the experience so to speak but it is needed if we are to translate, describe and explain that experience. Perhaps?!

[Patrick]

we need some sense of I in order to judge, assess and describe the experience of the smell.

If the ‘I’ is a thought how can this thought have the power to create another thought with judgement?

Typing happens, smelling happens, describing happens, judging happens, thinking happens.
No one in control, never. What comes up reading this?

Look closely at the sense of I.
What makes that it feels real?

[Caroline]

we need some sense of I in order to judge, assess and describe the experience of the smell.

If the ‘I’ is a thought how can this thought have the power to create another thought with judgement?

I was not thinking that the I created the thought about judgement and whether or not the smell was nice. But that without a sense of I judgement is not possible because the niceness comes from our previous experience of not-niceness....I soon loose the thread here!

Typing happens, smelling happens, describing happens, judging happens, thinking happens.
No one in control, never. What comes up reading this?

This I find difficult. I think 'what do you mean there is no one in control of course I'm in control otherwise I would not be able to type to type what i want to type!' However when this passes i find i want to giggle like a child, it feels like a 'naughty' thought. If no one is in control how does anything get done? I really like being in control!! At the moment I am experiencing a lot of insecurity in my job and I find this hard - I realise than my self of 'me'
and my value rely on my work. I want to be able to see and feel this, and feel like there is peace lying behind the statement but I can;t quite reach it.

Look closely at the sense of I.
What makes that it feels real?

It feels real because of history, because of the people around me and parts of my life that fit together to form me. It feels real because everyone around me affirms that 'I' exist! I have a job title and a name and a car and a house and a husband and step children and the very notion of having a life depends on someone being alive to live that life. The physicality of my body also contributes to the sense of realness, solidity and certainty.

[Patrick]

Thanks for these honest answers. They let see which points have to be clarified.
We go for direct looking with total honesty, seeing what is real and what is not.

When I ask for looking, you look at the question without going into thinking about the question.
It’s exercising direct experiencing before thought.
To learn to discriminate between senses, thoughts and feelings.
Seeing this deconstructs the beliefs build over the years.

There is a difference between
The character, the player named Caroline with her likes and dislikes, preferences, talents, abilities and inabilities. This is how life expresses life.
and
The personality, the selfimage,the identity that is build over the years, pushed by the society to change what they dislike, to conform to what they want, trying to be in control of life.
This personality is not real. This is the illusion of the I. The story to see through.

Have look at the character Caroline. What is this character? What is part of the character and what belongs to the personality?

The sense of self is a bunch of sensations, thoughts and feelings taken to be an independent entity.
Because there are real sensations together with the thoughts and feelings, it feels real.
Look at these sensations without the thoughts and feelings.
What are these sensations?

[Caroline]

Great OK thanks for the clarification. I actually feel really emotional thinking about the character!! I need some time with this one. Hope to get back to you tonight.

[Caroline]

There is a difference between
The character, the player named Caroline with her likes and dislikes, preferences, talents, abilities and inabilities. This is how life expresses life.
and
The personality, the selfimage,the identity that is build over the years, pushed by the society to change what they dislike, to conform to what they want, trying to be in control of life.
This personality is not real. This is the illusion of the I. The story to see through.

Have look at the character Caroline. What is this character? What is part of the character and what belongs to the personality?

Wow! How enmeshed they are! This question makes me tearful. I can kind of imagine this little ‘Caroline’ character huddled in a corner shut away whilst the personality dominates.

So much is the personality! Especially around fear. Fear of not being liked, fear of not being successful, fear of not being attractive, fear of getting old. It’s all around what other think of ‘me’ and the fact that ‘I’ get hurt by their negative reactions. No it’s even worse than this!! I am afraid of the negative reactions that I think they will have, not that they actually have.

I can see really clearly that I’m OK just as I am and yet I’m such a bully to myself!!! More, better, higher, further. It’s as though I have taken the character of Caroline and stuffed her in an icing bag (for icing cakes) and I’m squeezing her through the end of it to make shapes that will please other people because I am so scared of the reactions I imagine they might have.

I don’t like the idea of being squeezed through an icing bag. Although I do like cake so it is no surprise that this analogy has come up!

The sense of self is a bunch of sensations, thoughts and feelings taken to be an independent entity.
Because there are real sensations together with the thoughts and feelings, it feels real.
Look at these sensations without the thoughts and feelings.
What are these sensations?

I’m not 100% sure what you mean but three words came to mind:

Real, simple and alive.

[Patrick]

What is real, simple and alive?
What are you?

[Caroline]

Energy.
Life expressing itself.

Struggling to think of anything else for this one.

[Caroline]

A further thought. when plants grow they grow towards the light. They respond to their direct experience - the sunlight hitting the leaves. There is no I in the plant that does that - turns the leaves towards the sun, it just happens. It is life in motion (not that I imagine life to ever be static, it is what it is).

This example helps me see somehow that experience can happen, feelings can arise without a 'me'.

When I watch time lapse photography I get a sense of life flowing. Of the inevitability of its expression. I am part of that expression. The conditions and experiences that have come together to create the character Caroline are like the sunlight that hits the leaf which then turns towards the sun. They just are...Is it possible to know what 'life' actually is? Do we need to know? I think the answer to that is beyond explanation and only accessible by direct experience which makes it hard to intellectualise.

Coming back to the time lapse photography – thinking about big concrete blocks sticking out of the images – blocks of stuff that are rigid, that reject the flow and are unchanging. Those concrete blocks are a bit like the the constructions of self that we build up around us - we sit like a rock in the stream desperately trying not to be moved and finding it very painful when life starts to erode us. Better that we smash the rock and go with the flow!

Good night x