Looking for a final push

[Sarah7]

Hi Daniel

There is nothing else but this, but this turns into that, and if you don't take care of the that from the this then the that's just get worse and worse, even if there is no one to take care or not take care of the that. I get what your're saying but I just have nothing to add.

This is the sticking point isn’t it! There is no ‘that’! ‘That’ is imagined and labelled ‘worse’. ‘That’ is ALL thought wanting something other than this! LOL.

What do you see in direct experience? When you go back to basics what is experienced? Is any of this confusion there?
Hugs Sarah xxx

[Raweir]

What do you see in direct experience? When you go back to basics what is experienced? Is any of this confusion there?

I see that it's all thoughts but if the thoughts are there then they're there. There is a compulsion to be doing/searching all the time but whatever I do it's empty and unfulfilling, as is doing nothing. All the time it just feels like I'm waiting, whatever I do is just something to fill the time, whatever that thing is, honourable or not.

Whenever you ask me these questions, it makes sense while I'm sitting here, but once I leave the computer it's back to normal, and if it's that flimsy then it's useless. I'm starting to believe I'm not going to get it (nothing to get) and that's scary, because nothing else seems worth doing, what I imagined it to be was the only thing that would be fulfilling, or would make everything else fulfilling.

xx

[Sarah7]

Hi Daniel

I see that it's all thoughts but if the thoughts are there then they're there. There is a compulsion to be doing/searching all the time but whatever I do it's empty and unfulfilling, as is doing nothing. All the time it just feels like I'm waiting, whatever I do is just something to fill the time, whatever that thing is, honourable or not.
Whenever you ask me these questions, it makes sense while I'm sitting here, but once I leave the computer it's back to normal, and if it's that flimsy then it's useless. I'm starting to believe I'm not going to get it (nothing to get) and that's scary, because nothing else seems worth doing, what I imagined it to be was the only thing that would be fulfilling, or would make everything else fulfilling.

What do you think will happen if you don't 'want' anymore? Can you let go of what you imagined - is this a long held want?

Does doing happen with out thought? If so if not thinking about it - is it pointless?
Hugs Sarah xxx

[Raweir]

What do you think will happen if you don't 'want' anymore? Can you let go of what you imagined - is this a long held want?

What I think will happen is that I won't get the thing I want, I don't know what the thing is anyway, just a vague idea pieced together from other's anecdotes. Can I let go of it? I don't know. Some people seek for decades, there's no reason why I shouldn't be trapped in this forever, always seeking something. Even if I forget about non-duality and awakening, there will still be something missing, as there was before I even heard of it. I don't know how to let go of the feeling of something missing, or something not being right.

Does doing happen with out thought? If so if not thinking about it - is it pointless?

I dunno it just seems like it does. I mean, I can easily look, while making a cup of tea, at the hands opening the fridge and grabbing the milk, or the fingers typing faster than I can think about typing on this keyboard, and yeah it certainly looks as though it's happening on autopilot. But the big things, big decisions, it seems like I have to be there to make them, and that I will have to bear the consequences, and that I can get the decisions wrong.

And about the pointless thing. It's not the pointlessness that's a problem, but the fact that everything is so fleeting, so nothing can be fulfilling. Because after doing the thing, it's back to where you started, and maybe worse, because you want to experience the thing again, nostalgia. But this is a characteristic of existence, something just to accept I guess.

xx

[Sarah7]

Hey Daniel

Even if I forget about non-duality and awakening, there will still be something missing, as there was before I even heard of it. I don't know how to let go of the feeling of something missing, or something not being right.

Do you see that that is a thought story only possibly attached to a feeling? What is actually missing?

Does doing happen with out thought? If so if not thinking about it - is it pointless?

I dunno it just seems like it does.

So go look. Watch doing. Keep watching doing happen. Notice what goes on UNDER the thoughts. Is that pointless?

But the big things, big decisions, it seems like I have to be there to make them, and that I will have to bear the consequences, and that I can get the decisions wrong.

Is this actually true? Have you tested it?

And about the pointless thing. It's not the pointlessness that's a problem, but the fact that everything is so fleeting, so nothing can be fulfilling. Because after doing the thing, it's back to where you started, and maybe worse, because you want to experience the thing again, nostalgia. But this is a characteristic of existence, something just to accept I guess.

What or who is there to BE fulfilled? To what is fulfillment happening? FIND that you that wants to be fulfilled? Where is that ‘you’? LOOK!
Hugs Sarah xxx

[Raweir]

So go look. Watch doing. Keep watching doing happen. Notice what goes on UNDER the thoughts. Is that pointless?

It seems as though thought is never wrong though about what is going to happen next. Like "I think I'll go to the shop now", and then I go to the shop. It's never like "I think I'll take a bath now", and then I go to the shop. I'm not saying thought never thinks something that doesn't happen, but right before the thing happens there is (more often than not) a thought about doing the thing. And yet it seems crazy to say that thought is actually controlling the movements of the body, it's just that it seems like thought is predicting the future.

But the big things, big decisions, it seems like I have to be there to make them, and that I will have to bear the consequences, and that I can get the decisions wrong.

Is this actually true? Have you tested it?

I don't know. I don't know how to test it. I suppose no matter how big the 'doing' is, it comes down to a little doing anyway.

What or who is there to BE fulfilled? To what is fulfillment happening? FIND that you that wants to be fulfilled? Where is that ‘you’? LOOK!

Yeah so the lack of fulfillment isn't to do with the thing 'out there' which I would perceive as fulfilling, the 'something' which would fulfill me. It's to do with the lack of something that can be fulfilled. So fulfillment isn't possible because it requires an object of fulfillment (me).

xx

[Raweir]

So it seems that the whole point is for 'looking for something that non duality can give me' to stop, but that it comes to a natural end rather than a confused, annoyed, disappointed end, because otherwise the seeking goes on in other places as it did before. It seems to me that the only place I have left to seek is in non duality, I have mostly no desire to seek anything in the conventional ways (people, activities, blah, blah). Letting go of non duality seems scary, I would almost use the word 'fear', and impossible. It seems like until I find what can't be found I will always be thinking/watching/reading about it.

How do I stop seeking in non duality? Maybe the seeking will come to end naturally in time.

xx

[Sarah7]

Hey Daniel

It seems as though thought is never wrong though about what is going to happen next. Like "I think I'll go to the shop now", and then I go to the shop. It's never like "I think I'll take a bath now", and then I go to the shop. I'm not saying thought never thinks something that doesn't happen, but right before the thing happens there is (more often than not) a thought about doing the thing. And yet it seems crazy to say that thought is actually controlling the movements of the body, it's just that it seems like thought is predicting the future.

I don't know. I don't know how to test it. I suppose no matter how big the 'doing' is, it comes down to a little doing anyway.

Do you know what is going to come out of your mouth every time it opens to speak? Does that happen according to plan every time?
What happens when you go for a walk? Ever turned left instead of right?
Do your hands reach for the cup when you are thirsty – did that require thought – or was it just movement?
Notice every type of doing where thoughts are elsewhere – NOT on the task e.g. driving etc.
Is it the case that thought controls?
Tap with two or three fingers on the leg. Tap, tap, tap. Then, hold the fingers poised ready to tap. Just waiting in the air for a command to tap.
Looking at the fingers in the air, it’s not quite known when they will tap. In fact, the thought “tap now” can quite happily show up and yet the fingers remain in the air.
See if you can notice the moment when the command is issued and from whence it comes SUCH THAT the fingers simply have to obey. Notice if other commands to tap can be issued which have no affect on the fingers, leaving them remaining in the air.
Is it true that in direct experience there is no command that can be issued to make the fingers tap?
What causes the finger to tap? Anything? See what can be discovered in experience rather than thought.

Yeah so the lack of fulfillment isn't to do with the thing 'out there' which I would perceive as fulfilling, the 'something' which would fulfill me. It's to do with the lack of something that can be fulfilled. So fulfillment isn't possible because it requires an object of fulfillment (me).

Fulfillment is just a label. Along with ‘out there’. It’s a story attached to a thought – hunt this down. See it. Does the reflection ever affect the mirror?
Hugs Sarah xxx

[Raweir]

Hello Sarah. I figured that we'd exhausted all my recent confusions and I think it's all just the mind trying to philosophise, it's fruitless to keep trying to fulfill the questions because they will just keep coming, and the mind doesn't like the true answers.

So I went and answered the 6 questions again.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

No and no.

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.

It starts when the person is told, and learns (wrongly), that it is something which controls the body and can choose what to do, how to act etc. Since this isn't true, conflict can arise between what the body actually does and what the mind (which has ideas about how this particular person should act based on past experiences) thinks it should do. Now the mind will negatively label experience and the person as 'not how it should be' and similar things.
Even if things are going the way the mind wants, it will always want more, it's insatiable, unfulfillable.

The separation part comes from a belief that the person is inside or is actually the body, and so it is a body which is inside life/the world.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

Well it doesn't feel much different at all, maybe there is some settling in to do or something like that, I guess maybe I notice the mind a bit more rather than believing everything it says.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

Trying the find the separation between 'my body' and 'the world', and seeing that the two are the same thing, not in a mystical sense, but just that what I call the world appears in the same place as what I call my body.

5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen? Give examples from your experience.

No, but the mind is very good at seeming as though it is involved. The sticking point I had with the mind planning events and then them happening, like: "I'll go to the shop tomorrow" and then I do, seems to be just a prediction of the future based on the past, like a pattern of observing a lack of milk followed by shopping, and so the mind learns that an observation of a lack of milk is usually followed by shopping. But this can quickly turn into philosophising, so it's probably better just to see that there is no mechanism whereby the mind could make anything happen.

Thanks xx

[Sarah7]

Hi Daniel
Ive put your answers through to the other guides and Im just waiting for them all to get back to me. OK! Thanks for you patience and Ill be in touch asap - please keep checking in!
Big Hugs Sarah xxx

[Sarah7]

Hi Daniel
Ive pm'd you!
Big Hugs Sarah xxx