NowHere

[kvotski]

No, it never fades. Other hallucinations make us temporarily mad. We are all pschizophrenic.

The irrational spirituality of an invisible god or even awareness is not our object of focus.

We look and come to a rational conclusion that there is no I, the word we keep using blindly, madly and just to appease the hallucinating world. We do this only to sustain the body.

I know what you call tingling aliveness but be sure it ain't a Trojan horse.

It's pretty simple to know when you are being hijacked, you feel shitty or giddy.

There is only this unemotional peace, stillness here which when true feels like a bliss sensation in the body. Satchitanand.

[oboundless]

Thank you Sunil.

Chewing on your words today. Wish I fully understood 'Trojan Horse,' in this context. It's still true there's no 'me' yet when hijacking occurs (as it has a couple of times today, struggling with my girlfriend briefly over the color of lights on the Xmas tree, and whether it's ok to give the dogs sugar.....!....!) the leftover is less lucidity about no 'me.'

I'm tired, right now, and will post again tomorrow: because of the tiredness, there's a sense of the dullness right now that I mentioned a couple of days ago.

I have an appointment with Ilona early Wednesday morning; thank you for suggesting that, and for your tireless efforts with me.

I hope you are well.

[oboundless]

In the middle of the night last night sleepless, realized I don't foundationally believe in I anymore.

[oboundless]

Hi Sunil,

I hope you're okay — our correspondence has been such a constant in my life for quite some time now that when it's interrupted, I notice it.

If I was going to die next week, would I remain cautious about love? I can't quite put my finger on what happened in the session with Ilona, but what I'm left with is the imperative sense that my heart — that love — wants more space in my life. There were some moments in the session of full heart-openness in which looking at her was looking at myself. And, I feel very clear, in the progression of things that have happened with you and me that the absence of 'me' is an essential prerequisite for this possibility of love blossoming.

There is not really much DE in this. I wish there were – wish it were possible to be as clear about the calling of heart- presence as it is to be clear about whether or not there is a 'me.' I'm reminded of the fact that over the course of our talking, my capacity to feel other people has expanded and expanded, to the point where it's the mainstay of what I do as a therapist now: feel. Go figure: no 'me' = feeling.

I continue to feel very grateful to you Sunil.

[kvotski]

Awesome.

Scriptures say that even the greatest masters fall off the wagon as the old conditioning reminded by everything around rears its needy head.

To expect that won't happen to your body is unrealistic.

Just have to live with the frequent disruptions in your calm. But knowing that this cold will go prevents us from all humanity moving to Florida. There's impermanence for you.

Ttys.

[oboundless]

Thanks Sunil,

I appreciate what you say about disturbance.

And today, I've resumed writing in a journal: what makes me think there's a 'me'?

Cheers!

[oboundless]

....pretty interesting to hunt this down in writing: the habit resumes, seemingly without end!

[kvotski]

And whats wrong with that?

You dont complain about your breathing habit or driving habit.

Somehow you associate the habitual response as a separate self, apparently painful.

My daily tweet, “ spirituality is not get out of jail card, its about staying jail and not suffer”

[kvotski]

“Others will always show you exactly where you are stuck. They say or do something and you automatically get hooked into a familiar way of reacting—shutting down, speeding up, or getting all worked up.
When you react in the habitual way, with anger, greed, and so forth, it gives you a chance to see your patterns and work with them honestly and compassionately. Without others provoking you, you remain ignorant of your painful habits and cannot train in transforming them into the path of awakening.”
~ Pema Chodron

[oboundless]

Thanks Sunil,

I suppose if the habit intrinsically contained a potentially devastating error, that might be a problem.

I'm just finding it interesting to go back to journaling, which was where I first explicitly realized there's no separate self now, and keep on going with the process. Because I have been told I'm obstinate, and I certainly seem to myself very one-tracked at times, I seem to need this deepening and scouring process.

Thanks for the Pema quote: if there are other lives, which I'm doubtful about, I'll get to be an advanced sort of a yogi of her kind in about a million of them....

[kvotski]

Some are lucky and get hit with a blinding flash of life Changing insight although I know no such person myself. Every awakening I'm aware of is a continuous use of the good generals in your mind to subdue the distracting untrue irrational habits.

Some call this yoga and meditation.

But starting with a clear and constant understanding that there is no separate self adds a huge logical support for this noble and essential effort. For only this leads to happiness which seems fleeting whenever the bad generals take charge.

I use good and bad as convention and a mind game to transcend the labels. Like using a thorn to remove another. It's not difficult to define good, simply that makes you truly happy.

Isn't that simple?

[oboundless]

Thank you Sunil, I feel touched by your post, for your kind spaciousness toward what seems very much like a continuous process, although the bad generals are in condemnation for failure to instantly complete it! And by a certain kind of generosity, towards something that on the conventional surface is absurd, yet is actually the only reality.

No Separate Self Ever, when the heart of now is looked into, directly and immediately. Calming, soothing, gladness-making is this truth -- I get your your use of good and bad, and again appreciate the comfort I feel from your post today.

[oboundless]

What strikes me the last couple of days is how completely ok now is....and how much the stream of thoughts is busy chasing-after, what you recently called "the old conditioning reminded by everything around..." (and it is indeed compellingly echoed in the problematic interactions between people...) And there's very much a sense of being that conditioned stream, only offset in the glimpse-moments of immediacy when it's obvious there's no separate self.

NOW is good (nearly wrote 'god'....) My thinking is/I am mostly/ ALWAYS busy with PROBLEMS that promise to get solved some other time than now. Miserable, mostly - periodically leavened by noticing 'Oh, no me NOW.'

[oboundless]

Hello Sunil,

I hope you are well. I haven't posted much of any value for a while, but the last 24 hours have been a bit of an eye-opener, so to speak, and I wanted to share some of the impossible-to-convey (!) noticing with you, since without your sturdy companionship in the weeks leading up to this, I don't think this would have happened. Your invitations to me to see what's really here, in DE, opened a door that goes on yawing wider, and wider, and wider.....

I sat on my couch yesterday afternoon and took a real look at what's actually here when the bamboozlement of thought isn't running the show. I still don't have much of a clue how to say what I found. "Nothing"? The mystery of being is far more astonishing than is suggested by the 'no-one here' formulation. ALL of this; keyboard, monitor, houses, sky, universe is appearing in nothing - and 'in' isn't right: it IS 'nothing,' appearing as 'something.' It's like a magic show, of the most remarkable kind because everything seems so real (now I remember you saying 'SEEMS'....) Not only is there no one here, there's absolutely nothing whatsoever 'here' - it's crazy how completely nothing is this nothing!

Everything is exactly as it always was, or is - just that 'here' is simply this astonished wonderment - there's no observer, no consciousness (pure or otherwise...!) -- what all this is, and what it is appearing in is completely beyond explanation, including the bifurcation of those terms, 'what is' and 'what it appears in'! Completely hopeless to try and convey this! -- but the door to noticing it is without doubt what you called "a clear and constant understanding that there is no separate self."

I read back over what I'm going to post and it's useless, useless!!!! No conveyance whatsoever!!! But thank you! Thank you!

[kvotski]

Awesome.

Don't let thoughts try to convince you that you know what it is.

How about the most disturbing thought, time or event you can recall?

Was it Nothing?