My humble and sober request for a guide...

[Delma]

Who came to the forum?

[Dimitri]

Who? There is no who. View driven by Vector came to the forum... in order to see something. In order to see itself, to play some new kind if game? Who knows? Not sure it matters one way or another. It's just what's happening.

Vector seems no different whether it's a branch reaching for sunlight or view being pulled to the forum. There is a force, a compulsion, that makes these things happen, like gravity, or any other law of nature.

Apparently this aspect of View and Vector was curious and compelled enough to look in this corner of the universe for a bit.

[Delma]

And no shift?

That suggests an intellectual only grasp.

It does matter. Very much.

[Dimitri]

No real shift that I can discern.

What I meant by not mattering is that I can't say why View and Vector came to the forum, besides the fact that there was a strong compulsion to do so. It seems not much different than why View and Vector would choose to eat broccoli. Who knows? These things just happen. That's what Vector seems to do.

So, what do you think Delma? Do you have a feel for why this might all be landing intellectually but not in a deeper way? Am I wasting your time by not being ready or something? Thoughts?

[Delma]

Nope. You're not wasting my time at all. And... you may very well be ready.

The hardest part of this process is to get a person out of their thoughts and into a felt sense of this. Thought just tends to take over. It's the default way we understand how to get somewhere or figure something out.

But.

This isn't going to work that way. Logic and reason can take us to the edge, but each of the inquiries actually have to be done using the senses rather than thinking.

It's like this.

Check for a cell phone in your pocket.

Is it there?

Let me know what happened when you did this exercise.

[Dimitri]

Ok Delma. I'm sticking with you.

I've checked. It's not there. It's in my hand. I can tell because I can see and feel it there.

[Delma]

Notice that you didn't have to think about it or even imagine the answer? It feels solid and true. Would you bet your life on that answer if you had to?

[Dimitri]

Sure, I'd bet my life on it, provided I'm convinced that whomever is doing the verification of my truth, is doing it correctly.

[Delma]

That's the kind of surety needed when doing the inquiry. That's what's potentially missing.

Feel for the self. Turn the inquiry inward and look hard for the least shred of evidence and bet your life on the conviction of the findings.

[Dimitri]

Thank you Delma. When I feel for self all I feel is sensations inside of and on the surface of the body. I see, hear, smell. All there is is sensation in different forms... awareness, View. There is also awareness of thoughts and feelings but without a doubt, there is no self. Put a bullet in the chamber and spin it. I'm convinced there is and never has been a self. It's just an idea.

[Delma]

Well, if it were up to me, I'd say you were done. But since it's not up to me, I'd say you have the last say in this.

The only thing we can talk about are

1. expectations - if you'd been following spiritual stories, then you may have expected a really big shift, but for some, it's subtle. Revelatory? Yep. But not like there are stars all day every day. The self still comes up.

2. what happens next. It could be that everything you thought would come with seeing through the self actually comes *after* seeing through the self. That's why it's called the gate. It's not the end, it's a beginning.

On the idea of shift, can you say that there is no difference in how you view the world now as compared to before? Nothing?

[Delma]

one more thing......

Can you describe the moment you realized that there was no you? What happened? How? Describe the very moment it clicked.

[Dimitri]

Ok, here we go...
1. Expectations - I have followed spiritual stories but have given up on them all... less one.

Perhaps this is the problem. The process here looks a lot to me like spiritual autolysis, alla Jed McKenna. Sure, his story is just a story, partially fictional, maybe entirely fictional. And I believe it, at least the part about enlightenment being unmistakable. Maybe we're talking about two different things - Awakening alla Liberation Unleashed and Enlightenment alla Jed. Are we? Is his account, which comes with so little apparent fantasy, actually a fantasy?

And as I write this, I feel a deep sadness, like some part of me is dying, some other part mourning.

I just watched "Interstellar" in the theater and am chilled at how I feel identified with the main character. I'm prepared to give it all up and somehow feel as if I already have, like past, present, and future are collapsing, like the thing is already accomplished. It's down right freaky Delma. I feel as if I'm losing my mind over here, cracking up.

I'm not sure though, I'm not sure that I even believe in any such thing as awakening right now. I feel duped, angry, sad. I don't want nirvana. I want the truth. I want to know what I am, what all of this is. There's no way this life is the story we've been told. I just can't believe it any longer but I can't say what actually is either. I feel stuck in the middle, right in the middle of in it and of it.

2. As for the shift, things are different and they're not. Everything is exactly the same AND the piece of me which was fine believing in it all is no longer fine. That part is downright agitated, not ok with the dream but not able to see what's actually happening. It's like the worst case of "on the tip of my tongue" ever.

3. I'm not sure I can describe THE moment Delma. There have been so many, like grains of sand falling through an hour glass. Everything is falling through the aperture, piece by piece... and all of the pieces are just feelings, hunches that something is different in some way that I can't explain. It's all so freaking subtle, I can barely convince myself that anything is any different and I know it is.

Anyway, that's where I'm at. Hell, maybe I am through and I just don't like it. I know that my ego is still running pretty hard. I totally blew up at someone who stepped on it at work the other day. I'm going to sleep on it.

Thanks,

Ben

[Delma]

To answe your main question directly, yes.

We are talking only about aeeing through the illusion of self. Jed is talking in general terms about enlightenment.

This process is the gate, and LU has many resources for looking further from this point.

With that said, let's address what's happening with you.

You have seen the truth of reality and don't like it? It's ok that you don't. The very next inquiry is to look at the thoughts *about* this. Since the ego doesn't actually exist and has no power to do anything, what we're dealing with is thought content. By definition, waking up is about no longer believing thoughts and what's happening is that while the selfing thoughts have been seen through, this new tool of being able to see through *thought itself* isn't being applied further.

Apply the tool. Look further. Are thoughts real?

Tell me what you find.

Delma

[Delma]

Pardon the typos. On my phone.....