Requesting a guide.

[Petrus]

Hi Jahara,

Already some questions from one of the guides:

Is the brain responsible for coordination or does coordination just happen by itself?
What is your experience of the brain?

Regards, Petrus

[Jahara]

Hi Petrus,

The brain is an impersonal organ that is responsible for coordination and incoming sensory data. The brain is not owned by a person named 'Jahara' or 'Petrus' or whomever. The brain translates and separates incoming sensory data. That is how 'I' can paint. The brain controls the hands that hold the brush - it sends messages to the hands based on what the eyes see.

The experience of the brain is every single moment since birth. It is everything known. Incoming sensory data is broken down so there can be navigation through life till the moment of death.

Regards,
Jahara

[Petrus]

Hi Jahara,

Your did not answer about the brain from direct experience, didnt you?

I overlooked our dialogue and saw this:

There is a brain/body organism that reacts/responds to direct experience.

and

There is a brain/body organism that has the hand/brain coordination and ability to observe, in order to produce a picture.

and

It can't be the body because that is not where thoughts are. Thoughts are thought in the brain but again, that is just an organ of this body.

These statements are not from direct experience either.
It is how you are learned things are. So it is knowledge, thoughts about the issue.

So,
What is the brain in direct experience?
How do you know the brain is do the thinking?
Did you ever see your own brain?
Are thoughts about the brain, maybe just thought too?
Thoughts trying to interpret and assign meaning to experience?

I didnt do my set of questions about the body with you, only asked once: "Is there a solid body anyhow?"
So here we go again (extended guiding):

With the eyes closed, sitting still, notice the other sensations: hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. With only the input from those four senses, and without relying on thoughts or mental images:

Can it be known how tall the body is?
Does the body have a weight or a volume?
Is there a boundary between the body and the ground?
Can you feel where the body ends?

Do you have control over this body?
Can you locate a mind?

Can you feel your ears?
Does the body hear?
Or is there hearing?

In direct experience does the body have a shape or a form?
Is there an inside or outside?
What does the body consist of in direct experience?
Are you this body?

Warm regards, Petrus

[Jahara]

Hi Petrus,

What is the brain in direct experience?

At the moment hands are typing - eyes are seeing the words on the screen, ears are hearing the washing machine, nose is smelling a bowl of cut up fruit - these senses and the thoughts about them, and the thought to describe them to you, all come from the brain. I don't know what else to say about it. The brain is where thoughts are thought :) - the brain controls the movement of the hands, and the eyes scanning the screen .. The brain directs every impulse, movement, sense - whether there is a belief in a separate 'I' or not, the brain will continue to do what it does.

I had a friend who committed suicide by strangling himself with a cord. He had been hanging for about 15 minutes or so when found. His body was kept alive with a machine - heart was assisted with beating, lungs with breathing, as the brain had been without oxygen for too long and did not register as being functional, when tested. It was assumed that the brain could not register sound, sight or touch etc - because it could not keep the heart and lungs working - and was not able to think. Therefore it was said he was 'brain dead' - the person was dead, it was said, but the body still alive (because of the machines). However that is measured - no 'brain waves'? or whatever it's called. The machines were unplugged and the body died shortly after.

How do you know the brain is do the thinking?

Well it isn't my big toe! ha ha .. I can't know it absolutely - it is an assumption based on scientific shared knowledge. It's generally known that the brain is where thought happens - so it is assumed to be true. This assumption is also a thought - there is no 'i' to know anything - only thoughts about the thing. The brain controls movements of the body - so it stands to reason it is where thinking also takes place. I'm writing out a shopping list - thinking about what groceries are needed. The thought comes up that I used the last of the cucumber last night, the empty container is visualised and the brain asks the hand to write 'cucumber' on the list. It is remembered the bag of lettuce is getting low - there is an image of the almost empty bag, and the hand is directed to write 'lettuce' on the list.

Did you ever see your own brain?

The only way for these eyes to see the brain would be if it were operated on, and a photograph was taken. There is no 'I' to see the brain - the sight of it in a photograph would not bring up a recognition of an 'i' but just of an impersonal organ.

Are thoughts about the brain, maybe just thought too?

Of course. Thoughts about the brain originating/happening within in. Everything except direct physical experience is just a thought.

Thoughts trying to interpret and assign meaning to experience?

Yes this happens constantly. I've had this thing where, since from my mid-twenties, i would regularly look at the clock (digital), when it read 11:11. I was convinced this meant something in a 'spiritual' way - like it was a 'spirit guide' or some such telling me that everything will be okay, or that I was on the right path, or that I was being guided.. Thoughts assigned all sorts of such meanings to this experience. Where in reality, I looked at the clock plenty of times when it didn't read 11:11 - yet didn't assign any meaning to that. It is the same with walking along a path or trail or wherever and finding a feather. The brain assigned similar meanings as it did to the 11:11. - that each feather was a special message for 'me' that I am being guided, on the right 'path' etc etc.. Yet no thoughts came up when I saw a rock on the path, or a bit of plastic or an empty can or whatever. :) - just the feathers were given meaning.

With the eyes closed, sitting still, notice the other sensations: hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. With only the input from those four senses, and without relying on thoughts or mental images:

Can it be known how tall the body is?

No it can't. all there is, with eyes closed, sitting here on this chair: sound, smell, taste, touch. Nothing else can be known by these senses.

Does the body have a weight or a volume?

I can feel the chair under my bottom, and the arm resting on the chair arm. The weight or volume of the body cannot be known through the senses.

Is there a boundary between the body and the ground?

The floor can be felt under my feet.

Can you feel where the body ends?

No. I can only feel where the body is touching the chair and the floor.

Do you have control over this body?

sitting still with eyes closed, only feeling the senses of smell, touch, taste, hearing and sound, no there is no control over the body without thought.

Can you locate a mind?

No.

Trying to do so is thinking.

Can you feel your ears?

I can feel hair resting against ears - that's all.

Does the body hear?

It can't be known without thought. There is hearing happening. The washing machine, my partner speaking, a dog snoring, a lawn mower, a bird calling.

Or is there hearing?

There is just the sounds. To say, 'yes there is hearing' is also a thought. All there is are the sounds described. Thinking comes up with images of the things making the sounds, but what is heard is a humming, a voice, snoring sound, chirping etc..

In direct experience does the body have a shape or a form?

No. There is thinking that comes up with an image of the body, but its form/shape can't be felt with the senses of taste, touch, smell and hearing.

Is there an inside or outside?

That can't be known with the senses. Only thinking can come up with thoughts and images about whether there is an inside or outside.

What does the body consist of in direct experience?

Hmmm .. Nothing without thoughts about it. the thought is; the ears are hearing, tongue is tasting, nose is smelling.. but in direct experience all there is are the sounds, tastes and smells, and touch.

Are you this body?

No 'me' can be located. All there is are the sounds, tastes and smells and touch.
Pondering if I am this body or not, is thinking.

Thanks Petrus. :)

kind regards
jahara

[Petrus]

Hi Jahara,

these senses and the thoughts about them, and the thought to describe them to you, all come from the brain.

This is knowledge, thought only. Are you experiencing a brain thinking right now?

Well it isn't my big toe! ha ha .. I can't know it absolutely - it is an assumption based on scientific shared knowledge.

Why not stick with this "I can't know it absolutely".
Science is thought only!

The brain controls movements of the body - so it stands to reason it is where thinking also takes place.

Life is much bigger than reason can contain.
Which part of the brain do you experience thinking from?

Is there a boundary between the body and the ground?

The floor can be felt under my feet.

Can you feel a floor and your feet?
Or is it some pressure only? Plus the image of feet resting on a floor?

no there is no control over the body without thought.

So with thought there is control over the body?
Can thought control the body? Or is it making subtitles only before and after experiences?

If I summarize your answers about the body, then I see a lot:
"No I cant know that, only with thinking I can make an image."
Much of what we consider as true, is thinking only, are images only.
As the thought "I" we found to be an image, a thought only, without there being something real to point to.

What counts for the image "body" counts for "brain" too.
It is so relieving to just say: "I dont know" !

Warm regards, Petrus

[Jahara]

Hi Petrus,

Thank you for your continuing help.

Life is much bigger than reason can contain.
Which part of the brain do you experience thinking from?

I don't know.

Can you feel a floor and your feet?
Or is it some pressure only? Plus the image of feet resting on a floor?

It is a feeling of cold pressure only and yes, an image of bare feet on tiles.

So with thought there is control over the body?

I don't know.

Can thought control the body? Or is it making subtitles only before and after experiences?

From direct experience, this can't be known.

Yes it IS relieving to just say 'I don't know' ! :)

REgards,

Jahara

[Petrus]

One guide asks this:
In direct experience is there any organizing or controlling entity of the body such as a brain or any thinking entity, or is there just indefinable, mysterious movement happening?


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[Petrus]

And another guide had got an exercise for you:

Stand in front of a bigger mirror.
(1) First, close the eyes and feel the sensations in the body.
(2) Then open the eyes and look into the mirror, while still pay attention to the bodily sensations. Is there any connection between the felt sensations in the body and the sight in the mirror? Or just thoughts (and/or mental images) suggest that there is any?
(3) While still paying attention to the bodily sensations move one of the hands and observe the movement from the mirror. Is there any connection between the felt sensations (in the hand) and sight of movement in the mirror?
(4) Now do the same movement with the hand, but this time look at the hand directly, not from the mirror. Is there any connection between the felt sensations (in the hand) and sight of movement? Or only thoughts suggest it?
(5) Now, pay attention only to the sight in the mirror. Does the sight by itself suggest in any way that what is seen is ‘you’ or ‘your body’?Does the sight itself suggest in any way that what is seen is a body at all? Or there are only colours and shapes?
(6) Where the mirror ends, some parts of the body (probably legs) cannot be seen. Just by the sight, is there any ‘knowledge’ that there must be legs, or only thoughts and mental images suggest it?
(7) Now turn away from the mirror and look forward (don’t look directly to any body parts). Is there a body anywhere when all mental concepts and images are ignored, or there are only sensations?
(8) Start to walk slowly. Is there a body walking anywhere, or there are only sensations?

Still no hurry, haha...
Warm regards, Petrus


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[Jahara]

Hi Petrus,
Thank you to you and the other guides for these questions and exercise. I will respond either later today or tomorrow morning. Thank you. :)

kind regards,

Jahara

[Jahara]

Hi Petrus,

There's been a lot going on in the last couple of days that has prevented me responding. Finally a few moments! :)

One guide asks this:
In direct experience is there any organizing or controlling entity of the body such as a brain or any thinking entity, or is there just indefinable, mysterious movement happening?

There is just movement happening in direct experience. Just seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling , touch.. Being aware of a controlling entity is thinking and is not in direct experience. Right now I see sunlight coming through the windows , a noise is heard that my brain identifies as a plane, a hard coldness under what my brain tells me is my feet, even though I can't see them. Hand touches face - the face can't be seen so in direct experience it is simply just cold sensation - and the thought associated is 'hand touching face.'

[Jahara]

Now to the mirror exercise:

Is there any connection between the felt sensations in the body and the sight in the mirror? Or just thoughts (and/or mental images) suggest that there is any?

There is no connection. It is all thought and mental images that connect the sensations and what I see in the mirror . The sensations are disconnected from thought and the image in the mirror.

3) While still paying attention to the bodily sensations move one of the hands and observe the movement from the mirror. Is there any connection between the felt sensations (in the hand) and sight of movement in the mirror?

The connection is purely thought: knowledge that the sensations are of the hand in the mirror. But in direct experience without thought, there is no connection.

(4) Now do the same movement with the hand, but this time look at the hand directly, not from the mirror. Is there any connection between the felt sensations (in the hand) and sight of movement? Or only thoughts suggest it?

It is thoughts suggesting a connection. It is knowledge that the sensation is in the body part I'm looking at. The sensation is an isolated tactile feeling - it is thoughts that connect it to the hand.

(5) Now, pay attention only to the sight in the mirror. Does the sight by itself suggest in any way that what is seen is ‘you’ or ‘your body’?Does the sight itself suggest in any way that what is seen is a body at all? Or there are only colours and shapes?

Wow, yeah, it's all thinking - all knowledge/assumptions that what is seen in the mirror my body, or even a body at all! Taking thought out of the equation, what is seen cannot be labelled obviously - so yes, direct experience is sight of a shape - a colourful form.

(6) Where the mirror ends, some parts of the body (probably legs) cannot be seen. Just by the sight, is there any ‘knowledge’ that there must be legs, or only thoughts and mental images suggest it?

I can feel sensation below what can be seen in the mirror and it is thoughts /knowledge telling me it is legs and it is assumed that they are there in the mirror below what can be seen. It is thoughts - images of the legs. The brain does the assuming/thinking. But just by the sight, no, what cannot be seen cannot be known - there is just the sight of what can be seen.

(7) Now turn away from the mirror and look forward (don’t look directly to any body parts). Is there a body anywhere when all mental concepts and images are ignored, or there are only sensations?

No body!! ha!! just sensations. :)

8) Start to walk slowly. Is there a body walking anywhere, or there are only sensations?

Ha ha! Yes just sensations. Ignoring the thoughts/images - focus is on feeling/sensation - and that is all there is! :)

Thanks Petrus :)

Jahara

[Petrus]

Is there really a brain identifying a plane? Or is there an experience of a plane only?
Is there really a brain telling you something? Or is there just an experience and it is called feet immedeately afterwards only?


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[Jahara]

There is the experience of the sound only.

There is just an experience - a sensation only. There is the automatic thought 'feet', but what is felt/experienced is the sensation only.

[Petrus]

Hi Jahara,

The other guides have no more questions and confirmed.
So now a LU admin will contact you and invite you for the "post-gate" groups.

I think I said it before, but I liked guiding you..
Thanks.

Warmest regards, Petrus

[Jahara]

Hi Petrus,

Thank you sincerely for your expert guiding. Nothing is more important than seeing the truth, and your help has been so mud appreciated. I know the work has just begun and I embrace it.

Thank you again.

Warm regards

Jahara